Uniform elemental analysis of materials by sputtering and photoionization mass spectrometry

Analysis of the elemental composition of surfaces commonly involves techniques in which atoms or ions are ablated from the material's surface and detected by mass spectrometry. Secondaryion mass spectrometry1,2 is widely used for detection with high sensitivity (down to a few parts per billion) but technical problems prevent it from being truly quantitative. Some of these problems are circumvented by nonresonant laser post-ionization of sputtered atoms followed by time-of-flight mass spectrometry (surface analysis by laser ionization: SALI)3–9. But when there are large differences in ionization probabilities amongst different elements in the material, the detection sensitivity can be non-uniform and accurate quantification remains out of reach. Here we report that highly uniform, quantitative and sensitive analysis of materials can be achieved using a high-energy (5-keV) ion beam for sputtering coupled with a very-high-intensity laser to induce multiphoton ionization of the sputtered atoms. We show uniform elemental sensitivity for several samples containing elements with very different ionization potentials, suggesting that this approach can now be regarded as quantitative for essentially any material.