Mission
To conduct research in the general fields of quantitative secondary ion mass spectrometry to include:
- research in ion source design
- improvements in secondary ion transmission
- alternate uses of the sensitive mass spectrometer
- conventional SIMS analysis in earth and materials science
and
- to offer high-quality SIMS analyses to NSF-funded geoscience
researchers.
About the CAMECA IMS 3f
The Cameca IMS 3f secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) at Arizona State University (ASU) was installed in January 1984 (instrument #63). It was funded by NSF DMR with substantial contributions from the Geochemistry and Electronic Materials areas within NSF together with a 50% cost-share from ASU. Although the instrument was not funded as a facility, we were committed to a broad array of interactive projects in addition to substantial development of new analytical and instrumental capabilities.
About the CAMECA IMS 6f
The Cameca ims 6f SIMS instrument (#676, delivered in December, 1999) has improved vacuum (by ~1000x), better magnet stability, improved primary beam diameters, and higher secondary ion transmission at low and high mass resolving powers compared to the 3f (Hervig et al., 2006). It has been successfully used for a wide range of research topics dominated by meteorite studies (such as the microanalysis of oxygen and magnesium isotopes; Jones et al., 2004; Guan et al., 2006).
