Helium Ion Microscopy with Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry for Nanoscale Chemical Imaging and Analysis of Polyolefins

To date, chemical imaging of polymers and polymer blends has been primarily accomplished using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) to directly visualize the distribution of components in a complex material with spatial resolution ranging from 100 nm to 5 mu m. However, in many cases, this resolution falls far short of visualizing interfaces directly. To overcome these limitations, recent work has focused on developing a SIMS detection system based on a helium ion microscope (HIM) enabling chemical imaging with a demonstrated similar to 14 nm spatial resolution. Here, we utilize HIM-SIMS for differentiation between the olefin-based polymers of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). We illustrate both analyses for separating PE and PP using specific mass fragment ratios as well as demonstrate spatially resolved imaging of phase-separated domains within PE. Overall, we demonstrate the abilities of HIM-SIMS as a multimodal chemical technique for imaging and quantification of polyolefin interfaces, which could be more broadly applied to the analysis of more complex polymeric systems.

Automated summary

Chemical imaging of polymers and polymer blends has traditionally been done using ToF-SIMS with limited spatial resolution, but recent work has focused on using HIM-SIMS for higher resolution. By utilizing HIM-SIMS, differentiation between PE and PP as well as imaging of phase-separated domains within PE has been achieved, demonstrating its potential for analyzing complex polymeric systems.