Our fourth international Users Meeting was held immediately following SIMS Europe 2006, to read more about it check out the news page on the ION-TOF GmbH web site, here.

The TOF.SIMS 5 is being increasingly used in biomedical research and recently in particular in cell chemistry. The main reason for this is the introduction of the Bismuth primary ion source which constitutes a big improvement in performance for molecular analysis and enables sub-micron organic molecule mapping, a key requirement. MALDI users are limited to mapping resolutions in the order of some microns, and they see TOF.SIMS as a useful complimentary technique.

TOF-SIMS cell chemistry articles are now appearing in high quality journals:

MICROSCOPY RESEARCH AND TECHNIQUE
Nygren, H.; Börner, K.; Malmberg, P.; Tallarek, E.; Hagenhoff, B.: Imaging TOF-SIMS of Rat Kidney Prepared by High-Pressure Freezing. In: Microscopy Research and Technique, 68, 2005, pp. 329–334.

JOURNAL OF MASS SPECTROSCOPY
Brunelle, A.; Touboul, D. and Laprévote, O.: Biological tissue imaging with time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy and cluster ion sources. In: Journal of Mass Spectroscopy, 40, 2005, pp. 985-999.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MASS SPECTROMETRY
Touboul, D.; Kollmer, F.; Niehuis, E.; Brunelle, A. and Laprévote, O.: Improvement of Biological Time-Of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry Imaging with a Bismuth Cluster Ion Source. In: Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 16, 2005, pp. 1608-1618.

ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Sjövall, P.; Lausmaa, J.; Johansson, B.: Mass Spectrometric Imaging of Lipids in Brain Tissue. In: Anal. Chem., 76, 2004, pp. 4271-4278.

BIOPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Breitenstein, D.; Batenburg, J. J.; Hagenhoff, B.; Galla, H. J.: Lipid Specificity of Surfactant Protein B Studied by Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry. In: Biophysical Journal, 91, 2006, pp. 1347-1356.

In addition the Editor of the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry chose a rat brain image taken with a TOF.SIMS 5 for the front cover of Volume 10, Issue 16 (see also the News about: J. Am. Soc. Mass. Spectrom. publishes a biological TOF-SIMS paper in the News Archive 2005).

Any readers interested in this TOF-SIMS application should go to our contact page and send an enquiry. More papers on this subject are promised and we will keep you informed via this news page.

The 19th Annual SIMS Workshop was held last week in Palm Springs, California. The Rancho Mirage Westin Hotel was host to this years meeting and the scenic location (see pictures) helped relieve attendees from the 100^oF weather! Representatives from ION-TOF USA, ION-TOF GmbH and Tascon GmbH were among the 106 attendees.

ION-TOF USA president, Dr. Ewald Niehuis presented two papers at the workshop, "MCs⁺ Depth Profiling Using Cluster Primary Ions" and "Recent Advances in TOF-SIMS: From Cluster Ion Sources to Fully Automated Semiconductor Tools".

Dr. Birgit Hagenhoff of Tascon GmbH started the week off with a tutorial entitled, "A Practical Guide to SIMS Analysis of Organic Materials" and finished the week with a presentation in the Biological Material Characterization session entitled, "SIMS Analysis of Biological Materials Using Cluster Ion Sources".

A large number of the conference attendees were ION-TOF users and this helped make our users reception an enjoyable occasion for all.

We are happy to announce that a patent has been granted for the application of Bismuth Clusters in SIMS (DE 10339346). Announced in 2004, the Bismuth source has meanwhile become the standard primary ion source on all new ION-TOF systems.

The Bismuth ion source is the only ion source in the field which provides optimum performance for both organic and inorganic TOF-SIMS applications. It combines the fundamental benefits of cluster ion bombardment, such as superior efficiency and sensitivity, with a high brightness source. This allows unique data rates, lateral and mass resolution.

This source has given ION-TOF a clear technological lead in the SIMS market place, and we are pleased that the new ion source technology is replacing the Gallium or Gold primary ion sources. The flexible design of our instruments has enabled many of our users to upgrade their instruments to the new Bismuth source already.

If you would like to learn more about the Bismuth cluster ion source please go to the information request page.

Our sister company TASCON GmbH has recently formed an American subsidiary TASCON USA, Inc. in order to meet the increasing demand for high quality analytical services and consulting, and to provide more direct and faster replies to all enquiries. TASCON GmbH has acquired a very good reputation for the thoroughness of its investigations, and has built up a wide experience of sample systems and how to analyze them with TOF-SIMS. TASCON USA, Inc. will benefit from this acquired expertise.

TASCON USA is based in Chestnut Ridge, NY, next door to ION-TOF USA, Inc. In Europe ION-TOF uses TASCON GmbH as an application laboratory for selling and demonstration work, and this close co-operation has been very successful for many years. We have set up the same arrangement in Chestnut Ridge, so American customers can see a professional instrument demonstration in America.

The main contact person at TASCON USA is the very experienced application scientist Dr Albert Schnieders, who is well-known by many of our customers from his long-term service activities for ION-TOF USA, Inc. A new TOF.SIMS 5-300 instrument has now been installed in Chestnut Ridge. This instrument has the optimum configuration for surface spectroscopy, chemical mapping and depth profiling, and will be available for both new customers requiring analytical service and existing customers with too much work for their own instruments.

We know that many analysts in North America, both with and without their own TOF-SIMS, have been looking forward to the improved possibilities resulting from this new TASCON laboratory.

For further information, please contact TASCON USA, Inc. at the following address:

TASCON USA, Inc.
Bldg. A-8
100 Red Schoolhouse Road
Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977

TASCON USA's laboratory, equipped with a TOF.SIMS 5-300.

Dr Ian Fletcher from ICI Measurement Science Group is not only an expert in Cricket. Everybody who attended the vendors' talks during SIMS XV knows this already. He is also a man of practical and efficient solutions. This time he wanted to quench freeze samples in Nitrogen slush and avoid any condensation on the sample surface before the sample is safely in the evacuated loadlock. Therefore he has designed a practical glove box for his TOF-SIMS IV.

The glove box is constructed of acrylic sheet with a simple flexible interface to the TOF-SIMS IV airlock and ports for gloves so that samples can be handled inside the box. The space inside the glove box is easily sufficient to accommodate a nitrogen slush device, and any other sample preparation requiring an inert atmosphere. The box is flushed continuously with high purity Nitrogen gas to remove air and water.

Many samples will benefit from the clean sample preparation, for instance organic tissue and surface modified materials.

If you would like to learn more about customized configurations for the TOF.SIMS 5 please go to the ION-TOF Customized Configurations page.

CSMA, the UK materials analysis service company in the CERAM group, have recently taken delivery of a TOF.SIMS 5. It will be used by CSMA's team of specialist surface scientists in surface characterization and troubleshooting for a wide range of industries, including; pharmaceuticals, packaging, food, house wares. It will also help ensure that CSMA, which is part of CERAM, retains a world ranking position in this area of technology.

CSMA already has many of the world's blue chip pharmaceutical, medical device, semiconductor and automotive and aerospace companies as its clients, and is now enjoying a period of development and expansion. This is being driven by the demands of its clients to perform ever more technologically demanding applications, looking at new product developments as well as technological support for patent claims.

The company has been involved in assisting developments in a broad range of applications from innovative drug encapsulations, cardiovascular stents, orthopedic implants, laser surface cleaning studies for aerospace, proteins on surgical instruments etc.

The technology is not confined to large high tech companies however, as, through its parent company CERAM, CSMA is able to offer its services to many smaller companies with support from local agencies such as the UK's Advantage West Midlands.

ION-TOF user Vincent Smentkowski, with the help of Professor Luke Hanley, is organizing a symposium at the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006 conference. Entitled Surface Microscopy and Microanalysis in Materials and Biological Systems, the symposium will cover a broad range of material, with invited talks emphasizing state of the art surface analytical instrumentation, advanced data analysis tools, and the use of complimentary surface analytical instrumentation to perform a complete analysis of complex materials and biological systems. Also up for discussion are current and future surface analytical challenges.

Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006 (MM2006) will be held July 30-August 3, 2006 in Festival Hall at Navy Pier, Chicago IL. It is one of the premiere meetings of the year for scientists and technologists interested in learning about the latest advances in applications and techniques for the analysis of a broad range of materials in the biological and physical sciences, as well as nano- and bio-technology.

Meeting attendees are urged to contribute both platform and poster presentations to supplement the invited talks. It should be noted that extended abstracts are due on Feb 15, 2006 and can be submitted on-line at http://bono.cup.org/. Travel awards are available for students.

More information can be found at, MM2006

Dr. Albert Schnieders of ION-TOF USA will be giving an invited talk and ION-TOF user Professor Tom Beebe will be discussing his innovative work with surface analysis techniques in the neuroscience field.

Dr Thomas
Stephan,
TOF-SIMS IV user
at the Institute
of Planetology,
University of
Muenster

Launched in 1999, the Stardust spacecraft has traveled a long way for over seven years to its comet encounter. On Jan. 2, 2004, Stardust flew past the nucleus of comet Wild 2 at a distance of 240 kilometers (149 miles). During this close flyby, a special collector captured particles of the comet as the spacecraft flew through the coma, or cloud of dust and debris, surrounding Wild 2. Two years and 13 days after this first-of-its-kind cometary sample mission, the Stardust spacecraft ejected a capsule that descended into the desert of Utah on the 15th January 2006.

Now after the successful touch down of the capsule, Dr Thomas Stephan and his team are waiting for the important new sample. They will be one of the first of six groups to have a closer look at the collected particles. Dr Thomas Stephan has vast experience in the TOF-SIMS analysis of extraterrestrial particles and will use his TOF-SIMS IV for the new valuable samples. We are proud that our instrument might help to find out more about our origins.

"Ten years of planning and seven years of flight operations were realized early this morning when we successfully picked up our return capsule off of the desert floor in Utah," said Tom Duxbury, Stardust project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The Stardust project has delivered to the international science community material that has been unaltered since the formation of our solar system."

Comets are believed to be the oldest, most primitive bodies in the solar system, possibly comprised of some of the basic building blocks of life. They contain the remains of materials used in the formation of stars and planets, holding volatile, carbon-based rich elements that are likely to provide clues about the nature of the building blocks of our solar system. Importantly, they may provide evidence that comets brought water to the Earth, making possible life.

With the prospect of comets offering this treasure house of ancient information, there is significant anticipation about what findings scientists will be able to extrapolate from a firsthand examination of cometary materials. There is a real possibility of scientific findings that will change the way we view our origins.

For more information go to:
http://stardust.jpl. nasa.gov/home/index.html

This composite image was taken by the navigation camera during the close approach phase of Stardust's Jan 2, 2004 flyby of comet Wild 2. Several large depressed regions can be seen. Comet Wild 2 is about five kilometers (3.1 miles) in diameter. To create this image, a short exposure image showing tremendous surface detail was overlain on a long exposure image taken just 10 seconds later showing jets. Together, the images show an intensely active surface, jetting dust and gas streams into space and leaving a trail millions of kilometers long. (taken form the Stardust homepage)