Analysis of surfaces and thin films by resonant laser ablation
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM (United States)
There has been recent interest in the use of tunable lasers to enhance the ionization yield of selected components in laser ablation/mass spectrometry. This enhanced process has been termed resonant laser ablation (RLA), and typically relies on irradiation of a sample in a mass spectrometer with modest intensity (I {le} 10{sup 6} W/cm{sup 2}, f {le} 50 mJ/cm{sup 2}) laser pulses tuned to a one- or two-photon resonant transition in the analyte of interest. Potential advantages of RLA include: (1) simplification of the mass spectrum, by enhancement of signal from the analyte; (2) improvement of the absolute detection limits by improving the ionization efficiency, and (3) improvement in relative sensitivity by reducing spurious signal. The authors present a survey of RLA attributes and results, and describe the application to analysis of surfaces, thin films and multilayers. RLA is well suited to this task because the removal rates are low, allowing for repetitive analysis of surface spots, and because the high sensitivity allows for detection of minority components.
- OSTI ID:
- 191701
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-941098--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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