ABSTRACT
Any apparatus for secondary ion mass spectrometry includes a primary ion source, a vacuum chamber where the objects under study are placed, a mass analyzer, and a secondary ion detector. In the known laboratory and commercial secondary ion mass spectrometers, ion mass spectral microscopes, and ion probes, ion sources of various types are used. Immersion lenses often form the basis for primary ion source geometry and secondary ion collection optics, while three-electrode rotationally symmetric lenses are most frequently used for focusing purposes. Construction of such systems is, strictly speaking, reduced to the introduction of a primary ion source into spark mass spectrographs, along with corresponding extraction optics to transfer secondary ions to the entrance slit of mass spectrograph. The ion microprobes described above have been designed as automatic systems with specially developed mass spectrometers. The system for primary beam formation is made as an optional attachment to a commercial spark-source mass spectrometer, the MS-7.
