Probing Surface Information of Alloy by Time of Flight-Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer

In recent years, time of flight-secondary ion mass spectrometer (ToF-SIMS) has been widely employed to acquire surface information of materials. Here, we investigated the alloy surface by combining the mass spectra and 2D mapping images of ToF-SIMS. We found by surprise that these two results seem to be inconsistent with each other. Therefore, other surface characteristic tools such as SEM-EDS were further used to provide additional supports. The results indicated that such differences may originate from the variance of secondary ion yields, which might be affected by crystal orientation.

Automated summary

Researchers investigated alloy surface using time of flight-secondary ion mass spectrometer (ToF-SIMS) and found inconsistencies between mass spectra and 2D mapping images. Further analysis showed that these differences may be due to variations in secondary ion yields influenced by crystal orientation.