High energy ion microprobes

Analysis with high energy ion beams can be applied to microscopic samples or substructures of complex specimens by using nuclear or proton microprobes. Focusing of high energy ion beams requires specially designed collimators and lens systems. At present, beam diameters of 1 μm are obtained. The lateral resolution of the instruments, however, is not limited to this 1 μm. Consequently microprobe analysis with ion beams in favourable cases can provide better analytical possibilities and lateral resolution as compared with electron microprobes. Due to aberrations an improvement of beam diameters to less than 0.5-1 μm requires compensation of at least the chromatic aberration. The most important fields of application are mineralogy, materials science and biology. With nuclear reactions and PIXE (particle induced X-ray emission) the whole periodic table can be measured with detection limits down to the ppm level (weight fraction). The virtual lack of beam broadening by scattering in samples of a few μm thickness makes a kind of microscopic chemical tomography possible. (orig.)