Research Article
Enhancement of Intact- Ion Yield and Surface Sensitivity by Argon-cluster SIMS
Kozo Mochiji *Graduate School of Engineering, University of Hyogo, 2167 Shosha, Himeji, Hyogo 671-2280, Japan
- *Corresponding Author:
- Mochiji Kozo
Graduate School of Engineering
University of Hyogo, Japan
E-mail: mochiji@eng.u-hyogo.ac.jp
Received date: July 04, 2011; Accepted date: August 10, 2011; Published date: Augutst 13, 2011
Citation: Mochiji K (2011) Enhancement of Intact- Ion Yield and Surface Sensitivity by Argon-cluster SIMS. J Anal Bioanal Tech S2:001. doi: 10.4172/2155-9872.S2-001
Copyright: © 2011 Mochiji K. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
In secondary ion (SIMS) of organic samples, damages induced by the primary ions are crucial. The mass of intact ions (secondary ions not dissociated) currently detectable is only as high as the 1,000 Da at best, which prevents the technique from being extended to apply to organic molecules with larger mass. We developed SIMS equipment in which the primary ions were argon cluster ions having a kinetic energy per atom controlled down to 1eV. By applying this equipment to several peptides and proteins, the intensity of fragment ions was decreased by a factor of 102 when the per atom was decreased below 5 eV, and intact ions of cytochrome C (molecular weight: 12,327) and chymotrypsin (molecular weight: 25,000) were detected without using any matrix. Furthermore, we found that argon cluster ions sputter ultra thin layer (~ 2 nm) of organic material and enhance surface sensitivity in SIMS. Based upon the above results, a future prospect of argon-cluster projectile for SIMS is discussed.
