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Development of a Hollow Cathode Glow Discharge Ion Source for the CAMECA IMS 3f Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer

Ray-Chern Deng* and Peter Williams**

**Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona 85287-1604 USA

1. INTRODUCTION
Bulk analysis is often required for many conducting and semiconducting solid materials in addition to surface microanalysis. Glow discharge mass spectrometry (GDMS) is becoming an important technique for bulk analysis of solid materials [1]. Different types of glow discharge ion sources have been used with various mass spectrometers and one commercial system is already available [2-4]. Of the ion sources used for GDMS, the hollow cathode ion source produces currents of several orders of magnitude larger than that obtained in a planar electrode ion source as a result of the coalescence of the negative glow region. The hollow cathode ion source has been applied mostly to the analysis of metallic samples because of the difficulty in machining brittle samples, such as semiconductor wafers, to a hollow, cylindrical geometry.

As an alternative to the expense of a dedicated glow discharge mass spectrometer, a hollow cathode ion source has been developed for the Cameca IMS 3f secondary ion mass spectrometer. The hollow cathode is constructed easily from four pieces of conducting or semiconducting sample and extends applications of the secondary ion mass spectrometer for bulk analysis.