Toward a laser assisted wide-angle tomographic atom-probe

This paper reports preliminary results showing that the use of femtosecond laser pulses enables the field evaporation of single atoms, from specimens with a tip-like shape, without significant specimen heating. It is shown that the field evaporation is assisted by the laser field, which is enhanced by the sub wavelength dimensions of the tip. It is also shown that laser pulsing leads to a high mass resolution, making the use of energy compensating devices in a wide-angle three-dimensional atom-probe ineffectual. In addition, the performances of a position-sensitive detector that fulfills the wide-angle 3DAP requirements are presented. The emergence of the third generation of tomographic atom-probe with (i) wide-angle analysis capabilities and (ii) a field of application that is extended to poor conductive or insulating materials is then discussed. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.