From the 26th to the 29th October 2008, the 4th Chinese Conference on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS IV China) and the 2008 Beijing International Symposium on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ISSIMS 08 Beijing) took place in Beijing. ION-TOF attended these events in co-operation with their local agent, GermanTech, and gave the following talks:
 

• Recent Developments in TOF-SIMS and Low Energy Ion Scattering (LEIS)
  
  
• Characterization of Microstructures and Nanostructures by Cluster SIMS
  
  
• Thin Film Characterization with TOF-SIMS and LEIS

The AVS 55^th International Symposium and Exhibition was held recently in Boston, MA.

Attended by around 3,000 people the week's symposium was a lively affair with lots of good scientific discussions and plenty of occasions to socialize too.

Three talks were presented by ION-TOF personnel;

• A Novel Bismuth-Manganese Emitter for G-SIMS Spectroscopy and Imaging by Felix Kollmer
  
  
• Latest Developments and Applications of the Qtac 100 for High Sensitivity LEIS by Thomas Grehl
  
  
• Applications of TOF-SIMS and LEIS for the Characterization of Ultra-Thin Films by Thomas Grehl

We held our fifth Users Meeting on 16^th and 17^th September, following SIMS Europe 2008. This was once again a perfect opportunity for exchanging information, news and ideas.

For the social evening, about 100 customers and staff visited the popular Muenster zoo, which is well-known from television and one of Muenster's flagship attractions.

The event took place after the zoo closed to the public and during informative guided tours, we got a good look around the zoo. Afterwards, we took our guests "under the sea" by inviting them to a delicious candlelight dinner buffet held at the aquarium.

On the following day, we assembled at the Technology Centre just opposite the ION-TOF building. The latest company news was presented and two users gave highly interesting presentations on their TOF-SIMS applications. Of course, their efforts were rewarded with a souvenir of Muenster.

Many attendees also took the chance to see our new Low Energy Ion Scattering product, the Qtac, which received a lot of interest during the Users Meeting and was one of the main topics addressed on that day.

It was a pleasure for us to meet so many of our customers here in Muenster and we look forward to seeing everyone again next time!
 

In October 2007, during the AVS show in Seattle, ION-TOF officially launched its new Low Energy Ion Scattering (LEIS) instrument, the Qtac¹⁰⁰. There has been great interest from many sectors, both academic and industrial, and many potential customers have visited our laboratory to work with the new tool.

Today, 10 months after the official launch, we are delighted to announce that the first Qtac instrument was ordered by the Department of Catalysis and Materials at the University of Lille in Northern France. The UHV combination with a TOF.SIMS 5 and a Kratos Axis Ultra XPS will make the instrument a very powerful surface analytical tool. The Department of Catalysis and Materials at Lille is one of the biggest in France and the different techniques will be used to investigate a wide variety of materials. However, the Qtac will be particularly beneficial for their catalysis work, for which the analysis of the top atomic layer is essential. In this combined system it is possible to keep the sample under UHV while applying different analytical techniques. Therefore, surface contamination between analyses is virtually eliminated. This is particularly important for LEIS analysis.

We will of course follow up and support the user’s activities very closely and we look forward to many interesting publications based on the use of the Qtac¹⁰⁰.


View into the Qtac analysis chamber

The cover of the April 21st 2008 edition of the American Chemical Society's C&E News magazine featured an ION-TOF TOF-SIMS IV instrument.

The photograph from DOW Chemical's surface analysis lab, shows Brandon Kern inserting a sample into the TOF-SIMS.

Although the article focuses on specialty chemicals, why not contact one of our sales staff to find out how we can help you in all areas of surface and materials research?