Output details
12 - Aeronautical, Mechanical, Chemical and Manufacturing Engineering
Newcastle University
X-ray enhanced sputter rates in argon cluster ion sputter-depth profiling of polymers
X-ray assisted cluster sputtering is a new effect, first reported and explained in this paper, and completely unexpected by the XPS community. The effect must be controlled for accurate analysis with cluster ion beams. US firm ThermoElectron, the largest XPS instrument manufacturer, has rewritten its main "Avantage" software and plans to reengineer hardware to cope with the effect (contact: Paul Mack; paul.mack@thermofisher.com). The research reported in this paper supported the EPSRC proposal “National EPSRC Open-access Facility for Interface Engineering,” funded under the 2013 “Capital for Great Technologies” programme (administered as an additional £2.7M to the University equipment account, EP/K022679/1).