Advances in SIMS Technology at the Nanometer Scale: Recent Developments, Future Trends and Correlative Microscopy
Dr. Tom Wirtz (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), Belvaux, Luxembourg)

While Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) was originally mainly used for depth profiling, the applications gradually shifted towards 2D and 3D imaging as a result of the dramatically improved spatial resolution resulting from the progress made on the instrumental side. As a consequence, new fields of application for SIMS, e.g. in life sciences and nanotechnologies, are emerging.
SIMS can also play a major role when it is used in conjunction with other high-resolution imaging techniques. Due to the ever increasing complexity of devices and the continuously shrinking geometries in materials research, analytical tools allowing a mapping of samples with both excellent resolution and high-sensitivity chemical information are strongly needed [1]. In this context, we developed integrated instruments combining SIMS with Transmission Electron Microscopy [2], Scanning Probe Microscopy [3] and Helium Ion Microscopy [4-6]. The main advantage of this in-situ correlative approach is its capability to analyse the same area of interest of any sample without need of transferring the sample from one instrument to another one, which would result in a number of artefacts ranging from surface contamination to issues with localizing exactly the same ROIs. Moreover, the integrated approach allows fast and multiple interlacing between the different imaging and analysis modes.
In this talk, I will first introduce some basics and challenges of SIMS, and then present the TEM-SIMS, HIM-SIMS and SPM-SIMS concepts and instruments and discuss their performance characteristics. I will then present a number of examples taken from various fields of materials science and life science to show the powerful correlative microscopy possibilities enabled by these new in-situ methods.

References
[1] T. Wirtz, P. Philipp, J.-N. Audinot, D. Dowsett, S. Eswara, Nanotechnology 26 (2015) 434001
[2] L. Yedra, S. Eswara, D. Dowsett, T. Wirtz, Sci. Rep. 6, 28705, 2016
[3] Y. Fleming, T. Wirtz, Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 6 (2015) 1091-1099
[4] T. Wirtz, D. Dowsett, P. Philipp, Helium Ion Microscopy, ed. G. Hlawacek, A. Gölzhäuser, Springer, 2017
[5] D. Dowsett, T. Wirtz, Anal. Chem. 89 (2017) 8957-8965
[6] P. Gratia et al, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 138 (49) 15821–15824, 2016