Plasma profiling-time of flight mass spectrometry: considerations to exploit its analytical performance for materials characterization

Abstract

The combination of pulsed glow discharge (PGD) with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) provides quasi-simultaneous mass spectra of fast transient signals directly from solid materials.

Pulsed radiofrequency glow discharge time-of-flight mass spectrometry: Depth profile analysis of multilayers on conductive and non-conductive substrates

“…Pulsed rf power is supplied to the plasma through the backside of the sample. Just after the interface between the GD and the TOFMS (consisting on a 0.5 mm sampler cone and a 1 mm skimmer cone) there is a quadrupole filter that enables for attenuation of up to four ions at different masses in order to reduce overloading of the detector and, thus, to increase its dynamic range [14]. In the experiments, a 30 kHz extraction frequency was used.…”

“…1c) provided better depth resolution for the three layers, containing Ni, and also a sharper interface conductive layernon-conductive substrate. This lower pulse width has also allowed for a significant increase in the Nd sensitivity because spacecharge effects occurring at the instrument interface for long pulses [14] are not evident at short pulses. Therefore, considering signal intensities and depth resolution of the deposited layers on glass, 0.16 ms pulse width and 1.32 ms period were selected for subsequent experiments.…”