Physical Electronics XPS, AES, and SIMS surface analysis instruments are playing a critical role in understanding efficiency and lifetime issues related to energy conversion devices, energy storage devices (batteries), and many energy saving technologies.
Physical Electronics XPS and TOF-SIMS instruments are routinely used to characterize the surfaces of implantable medical devices, study the release of drugs from delivery platforms, and more recently to support basic medical research with TOF-SIMS characterization of tissue sections.
Polymeric materials are widely used for structural materials, and coatings in many research and industrial applications. Polymers are often chemically inert and require surface modification to promote properties such as adhesion and wettability. The use of PHI XPS and TOF-SIMS instruments to detect and characterize surface modification or contamination of polymer surfaces is critical to the successful end use of many polymeric materials.
Thin films and coatings are used or applied to an almost limitless range of applications to provide a specific
performance characteristic for a broad range of industrial products. These include coatings that provide antistatic
properties, corrosion resistance, reduce wear, and promote adhesion; as well as thin films for optical devices,
mirrors, semiconductor devices, magnetic media, food wrap, etc.
Corrosion and wear, and coatings to prevent corrosion and wear are often studied by XPS to provide quantitative chemical state information and by TOF-SIMS to provide molecular identification if organic materials are involved.
Surface analysis techniques are ideally suited to characterize the nanometer protective coatings and magnetic layers that make up today’s magnetic media. In addition to characterizing the magnetic media, surface analysis equipment plays a key role in the development of read/write heads and the detection and characterization of contaminants on components throughout the disk drive.
Microelectronic devices typically consist of a series of thin films that have been patterned to produce a
device. The use of surface analysis instruments to characterize the composition of thin films or patterned structures
and detect contaminants or process residues is critical to the development of new materials, manufacturing processes,
and increasing product yield.
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) surface analysis instruments provide elemental and chemical state information by measuring the
binding energy of photoelectrons that have been excited with a mono-energetic x-ray beam. With the use of a sputter ion gun to remove material,
thin film characterization is also possible.
Hard X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy ( HAXPES) instruments provide information similar to XPS – elemental and chemical state information – but from deeper depths. This opens opportunities for probing thicker film structures and buried interfaces, as well as minimizing the effects of surface contamination and ion-induced chemical damage during depth profiling.
PHI's time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) surface analysis equipment provides elemental, chemical and molecular information by measuring the mass of ions that have been ejected from a samples surface with the use of a focused ion beam.
Our Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) surface analysis equipment provides elemental and in some instances chemical information with the use of a finely focused electron beam to excite the Auger electrons. The analysis of submicron features is routine and thin film analysis is possible with the use of a sputter ion gun to remove material.
