Presenter

Dr Richard White, Sales and Marketing Director, Nano-scale Material Analysis, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Abstract

Advanced materials present ever increasing challenges to the analytical scientist. Composite materials built from nanostructures or ultra-thin films, often with complex chemistries present, are now required in a broad range of applications, and achieving full characterization is rarely managed using only one analysis method. To maintain confidence in the results from the utilization of several different methods, it is advantageous to be able to perform experiments on the same platform. Ideally, this should be without having to move the sample between several instruments, removing the need for additional registration or processing to ensure that the data is being collected from the same position.

For surface analysis, it has been common for many years to incorporate related analysis techniques onto the same instrument. For example, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) systems are commonly equipped with UV light sources to facilitate investigation of additional properties of materials via ultra-violet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). The ion source that is typically used for sample cleaning and depth profiling can also be used for low energy ion scattering (LEIS or ISS), providing more surface sensitive elemental composition information than can be delivered from XPS alone.

In this presentation we will discuss the strengths of this combined, in-situ approach to surface analysis, illustrated with examples from a range of applications including carbon nanomaterials, microelectronics and battery materials.