The biggest advantage of time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) is imaging performance. TOF-SIMS is the only surface analysis technique which can provide the elemental and molecular ion images with high spatial resolution and high sensitivity. However, acquiring accurate images of uniform intensity from three-dimensional (3D) objects having curved surfaces is challenging because the ion extraction field in a TOF-SIMS system is ideally suited for the measurement of flat samples. When the authors observe the samples which have curved surfaces, the observable region is often restricted; it is, therefore, impossible to discuss the chemical abundance of components at various locations on the sample surface. Several methods to solve this problem have been proposed, e.g., delayed extraction or embedding the sample, but each has some disadvantages. Therefore, the authors have developed a curved surface sample holder for the uniform extraction of ions from 3D objects. This sample holder succeeded to expand the observable region dramatically without any significant drawbacks. In this article, the capability for uniform imaging afforded by the newly designed sample holder will be demonstrated.

中文翻译：

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用于 TOF-SIMS 成像的曲面样品架提供更广泛的视觉能力

飞行时间二次离子质谱 (TOF-SIMS) 的最大优势是成像性能。TOF-SIMS 是唯一能够提供高空间分辨率和高灵敏度的元素和分子离子图像的表面分析技术。然而，从具有曲面的三维 (3D) 物体获取强度均匀的准确图像具有挑战性，因为 TOF-SIMS 系统中的离子提取场非常适合测量平面样品。当作者观察具有曲面的样品时，可观察区域往往受到限制；因此，不可能讨论样品表面不同位置的成分的化学丰度。已经提出了几种解决这个问题的方法，例如延迟提取或嵌入样本，但每个都有一些缺点。因此，作者开发了一种曲面样品架，用于从 3D 物体中均匀提取离子。这个样品架成功地显着扩大了可观察区域，而没有任何明显的缺点。在本文中，将展示新设计的样品架提供的均匀成像能力。