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Molecular‐level etching by electrospray droplet impact
Author(s) -
Sakai Yuji,
Iijima Yoshitoki,
Mori Kunihiko,
Hiraoka Kenzo
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
surface and interface analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-9918
pISSN - 0142-2421
DOI - 10.1002/sia.2946
Subject(s) - electrospray ionization , electrospray , etching (microfabrication) , chemistry , layer (electronics) , cluster (spacecraft) , sputtering , ionization , ion , matrix (chemical analysis) , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemical physics , mass spectrometry , nanotechnology , chromatography , materials science , organic chemistry , thin film , computer science , programming language
A novel ionization method, electrospray droplet impact (EDI), has been developed for matrix‐free SIMS. The charged water droplets used in EDI are extremely large cluster ions with masses of about a few 10 6 u. When the charged water droplets impact on a target, the physical sputtering of the target is suppressed to minimal and an atomic‐and molecular‐level layer‐by‐layer etching is realized. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.