The Atom-Probe Field Ion Microscope

Abstract

A serious limitation of the field ion microscope has been its inability to identify the chemical nature of the individually imaged atoms. The newly conceived atom-probe FIM is a combination probe-hole FIM and mass spectrometer having single particle sensitivity. During observation, the observer selects an atomic site of interest by placing it over a probe hole in the image screen. Pulsed field evaporation sends the chosen particle through the hole and into the spectrometer section. Preliminary results show that field evaporation of tungsten under poor vacuum conditions occurs as triply or quadruply charged WO, WN, WO2, and WN2 ions, while under better conditions doubly and possibly triply charged tungsten can be observed. Mo–Re alloys always produced doubly charged molybdenum and rhenium ions when examined in the atom-probe. Wide applications for the study of short range order in alloys, the chemical nature of precipitates and impurity atoms, and information regarding the imaging properties of various atom species, of both the substrate and adsorbed material, are foreseen.