Study of the useful yield of the Storing Matter technique using Ge(1 0 0) as a sputter target

Storing Matter is a new analytical technique for organic and inorganic materials, which tries to circumvent the well-known matrix effect in SIMS. This technique consists of separating the sputtering of the sample from the subsequent analysis steps. Thus, the sample to be analysed is sputtered with a focused ion beam produced by a floating low-energy ion gun (FLIG) and the particles emitted under the ion impacts are deposited at a sub-monolayer level on a well-known collector. The collector with the deposited material is then analysed in a second step by SIMS (dynamic and static mode). The main advantage of this new technique is to improve the sensitivity and the quantification of the SIMS analysis. All the processes, including all the sample and collector transfers, are performed in UHV conditions. This paper presents preliminary results obtained on the Storing Matter prototype instrument developed in our laboratory. The sputtering of a (1 0 0) Ge wafer by ions was used as a model system to study the influence of using different collector surfaces (W, Ta and Al) on the Storing Matter useful yield.