Effects of optical dopants and laser wavelength on atom probe tomography analyses of borosilicate glasses

Atom probe tomography (APT) is a novel analytical microscopy method that provides three dimensional elemental mapping with sub-nanometer spatial resolution and has only recently been applied to insulating glass and ceramic samples. In this paper, we have studied the influence of the optical absorption in glass samples on APT characterization by introducing different transition metal optical dopants to a model borosilicate nuclear waste glass. A systematic comparison is presented of the glass optical properties and the resulting APT data quality in terms of compositional accuracy and the mass spectra quality for two APT systems: one with a green laser (532 nm, LEAP 3000X HR) and one with a UV laser (355 nm, LEAP 4000X HR). These data were also compared to the study of a more complex borosilicate glass (SON68). The results show that the analysis data quality, particularly the compositional accuracy and sample yield, was clearly linked to optical absorption when using a green laser, while for the UV laser optical doping aided in improving data yield but did not have a significant effect on compositional accuracy. Comparisons of data between the LEAP systems suggest that the smaller laser spot size of the LEAP 4000X HR played a more critical role for optimum performance than the optical dopants themselves. The smaller spot size resulted in more accurate composition measurements due to a reduced background level independent of the material's optical properties.