A novel atomic force microscope (AFM) having a chemical sensing function has been proposed. Using an AFM having a tip on which surface sensor molecules were immobilized, the molecular lengths of chemically adsorbed molecules on the solid surface were discriminated for the first time.
Wavelength-dispersive total reflection X-ray fluorescence (WD-TXRF) equipment supported by an energy-dispersive (ED) solid-state detector (SSD) has been developed and installed in the BL16XU Industrial Consortium ID Beamline for Material Research at the SPring-8 synchrotron radiation research facility. Equipment specifications are given and results from our initial experiment are discussed in this paper. In the experiment on the sensitivity of detection of metallic impurities on a Si wafer, the lower limit of detection (LLD) using a Ge-SSD reached an order of 108 atoms/cm2 with a corresponding absolute weight of approximately 10 fg for ED-TXRF. In comparison, an order of 109 atoms/cm2 with a corresponding weight of around 100 fg was obtained for WD-TXRF for the first time. Although ED-TXRF still has a lower LLD, using WD-TXRF can provide good energy resolution with a high count rate, opening up a new field of X-ray fluorescence measurement.
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