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2007200620052004200320022001
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18.01.2005
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Do TOF-SIMS users live longer?
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International
Award for
Liveable
Communities
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The ION-TOF employees have always considered that the use of TOF-SIMS will have a positive influence on your life. Of course, there was no real evidence of a link between the technique and happy living, but the spirit inside the company was always a strong indication.
Last autumn the City of Münster won the international award for Liveable Communities (LivCom). This award is the world’s only Competition for local communities that focuses on environmental management and the creation of liveable communities. The objective of the LivCom award is to encourage best practice, innovation and leadership in providing a vibrant, environmentally sustainable community that improves the quality of life.
Following the award, the city of Münster launched a marketing campaign explaining which criteria had lead to winning the price. One poster of this campaign caught the eyes of the ION-TOF team immediately, officially confirming the strong impact of our TOF-SIMS instruments on a positive way of life. It shows a picture through the sample chamber window of our TOF-SIMS instruments. We will follow up this new idea and hope that your instrument might influence your life in a positive way as well. If you do not have your own instrument yet, why don’t you visit our information request site?
Happy and successful New Year 2005!
The ION-TOF team
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24.01.2005
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2005 Worldwide Chinese Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry & Related Topics Symposium
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Dr. Derk Rading
giving a talk
during the
symposiom
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The Worldwide Chinese Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry & Related Topics Symposium was successfully held in Hsinchu/Taiwan from the 15th to the 19th of January 2005. About one hundred delegates attended, mainly from Taiwan and mainland China, showing the growing interest in SIMS techniques in the region. Focussing on the characterisation of semiconductor devices, photo-electronic material, nano-scaled materials and bio-materials the symposium provided a welcome opportunity for the exchange of ideas and experience in the field of SIMS.
The plenary lectures were given by by two of the leading academics concerned with the development and application of SIMS over many years, Prof. Benninghoven of the University of Muenster/Germany and Prof. Vandervorst of IMEC/Belgium.
The ION-TOF SIMS papers were presented by Dr Derk Rading, our Applications Specialist, who talked about the latest developments in TOF-SIMS, and our local agent Mr H W Wong of HI-TECH Instruments gave a paper in Chinese. Subsequent questions, both at the time of the lectures, and person to person during breaks and mealtimes, showed a strong level of interest in TOF-SIMS by the delegates.
We hope that the organisers will continue with this Symposium and are looking forward to the next Chinese SIMS Symposium.
Attendees of the Worldwide Chinese Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry
& Related Topics Symposium. In the group photograph Prof. Benninghoven
can be seen in the middle, flanked by Prof. Ling(left)and Prof. Cha(right).
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18.05.2005
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First TOF.SIMS 5 in South Africa
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We are very pleased to announce our first order from South Africa. A TOF.SIMS 5 will be delivered to the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
www.nml.csir.co.za
towards the end of 2005. It will be installed in the Department of Science and Technology for Nanotechnology Capacity Building. Contacts are
Martin van Staden, and
Thembela Hillie.
The applications will be many and various, since the CSIR is a national facility.
The CSIR is the largest community and industry directed scientific and technological research, development and implementation organisation in Africa and currently undertakes approximately 10 per cent of all research and development work on the continent.
It was established by the South African Government in 1945, and by providing technology solutions, plays an integral part in the development of South Africa. Much of its research and development, and technology transfer is market-driven, to support the economy and improve the quality of life of all South Africans.
The CSIR's staff complement of over 3 300 include scientists, engineers, technologists, technicians, sociologists and support staff and are at the forefront of research and implementation as part of the global scientific and technological community.
Less than a decade ago, the CSIR set out to transform itself in the technology partner of the people of South Africa. From being almost completely dependant on government funding before the restructuring of the organisation in 1987, when its Parliamentary Grant income represented 70 per cent of total income, the CSIR has demonstrated its ability over the past eight years to steadily grow its external income as a contract research organisation and now derives close to 60% of external revenue from the private sector. The turnover for the CSIR group was in excess of R850 million in the financial year ending March 2001.
CSIR technical enquiries: +27 12 841-2000
We are sure that the TOF.SIMS 5 will make a contribution, especially assisting South African industry with surface analysis applications.
If you would like more information from ION-TOF, please contact our local agent Richard Holton at Vacutec, Tel +27 11 476-4202, vacutec@
iafrica.com
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18.05.2005
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SIMS Workshop 2005
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Correlation
analysis of a
photographic
film crystal
with
Bi3++
showing a
lateral
resolution of
100 nm
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The Annual SIMS Workshop was held at the Hilton Head Marriot Hotel in South Carolina. Attendance of about 100 makes this meeting the third biggest dedicated SIMS event in the calendar after the biennial SIMS Conference and SIMS Europe. A wide variety of SIMS topics were presented, but the major topic was the continued development and exploration of cluster primary ion sources, in which naturally ION-TOF was prominent.
An examination of our sales statistics before the meeting showed that the Bi liquid metal ion gun has now become the analytical source of first choice for TOF-SIMS, and results presented by users at the Workshop confirmed this.
The developers are very excited by the possibilities of the C60 ion source and in particular some interesting results from depth profiling organic materials were shown.
Our Managing Director, Ewald Niehuis, gave a review on the recent history and present performance of the various sources available ( Ga, Au, Bi, C60........) for both organic and inorganic analysis. This was extremely well received, because the development and new uses of the cluster sources has been so rapid that TOF-SIMS analysts have had difficulty keeping up with the latest information. In particular he presented a slide showing the history of sales of the various analytical sources. It clearly shows the preference of the market for the Bismuth source as a first choice. It is early days yet for C60, but the current technological limitations are keeping the sales low.
For more information, please contact us by e-mail
sales@iontof.com.
Market demand for Ion Sources in per cent. Please note that all ION-TOF instruments sold so far in 2005 are equipped with a Bismuth source.
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01.07.2005
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TASCON grows and broadens its analytical expertise.
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Founded in 1997 ION-TOF’s sister company for analytical service, TASCON, has achieved constant growth. Offering high quality analytical service and consulting for all kind of surface and sub-surface analytical tasks, TASCON has become a trusted partner for many European companies. The enlargement of the TASCON analytical team at the beginning of 2005 has further broadened its analytical expertise. Today you will find physicists, chemists, biologists, biochemists and geologists working successfully in close co-operation to solve customer problems.
Last year TASCON took delivery of a new 300mm sample size instrument, the TOF-SIMS 5-300, and cluster beam ion sources. The 300mm instrument allows them to offer better service to the 300mm semiconductor industry, and consequently increase their depth profiling business. The cluster beam sources have dramatically increased efficiency for molecular species giving sub-micron spatial resolution for surface mapping and better spectroscopy, and many customers have demanded more of such analyses, providing a big new business area for TASCON. The combination of depth profiling and surface mapping provides a means of 3D rendering, and these are ideal analyses for overnight automated operation. So TASCON’s customers, in addition to the traditional static SIMS analyses are increasingly asking for more surface mapping, depth profiling and 3D rendering
Originally equipped with Gold cluster beam sources, for over a year TASCON has also been the test laboratory for the new Bismuth Cluster ion source, and the new source is now being used for nearly all their analytical applications. The Managing Director, Birgit Hagenhoff, says, “ the faster data acquisition using Bismuth, compared to Gold, has made a significant improvement in TASCON’s output, and the cluster sources have given the company lots more market opportunities”
TASCON’s reputation for providing sound and thoroughly worked analytical reports is becoming more apparent to a discerning market. Often important design or production decisions are based on the results. TASCON will surely keep growing.
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19.10.2005
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SIMS XV: Conference and Exhibition
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The SIMS community is fortunate to have its own international and
regional Conferences, unlike the majority of the other surface analytical
techniques. The main event is the International SIMS Conference,
biennial, which locates in turn in Europe, Asia and North America. Mid
September saw the International Meeting, SIMS XV, being held in
Manchester, UK, which was attended by 400 delegates from many countries.
A main theme of SIMS XV was the application of cluster sources, liquid
metal Bismuth and C60, and in particular the use and potential for
biological molecular imaging. TASCON, our sister company, showed 3D
molecular mapping of cells for the first time at a SIMS Conference, and
ION-TOF demonstrated the versatility of the cluster Bismuth source for
all TOF-SIMS applications. We had many visitors to our Exhibition stand
asking for information about cluster sources. Those who already possess
a TOF-SIMS, however equipped only with a mono-atomic Gallium source, were
very keen to know the price of the upgrade to a cluster Bismuth source.
Bismuth has become the source of first choice for new TOF-SIMS customers.
If you want the details of the very significant advantages of Bismuth
over other sources, please use our contact page on this web-site.
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19.10.2005
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J. Am. Soc. Mass. Spectrom. publishes a biological TOF-SIMS paper
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We are pleased to note that on the front cover of the October issue of
the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectroscopy there is an ion
image, taken with a TOF-SIMS IV fitted with a Bismuth source, showing the
distribution of three different lipids in a section of a mouse brain (D. Touboul, F. Kollmer, E. Niehuis, A. Brunelle, O. Laprévote, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 16 (2005) 1608-1618)
Three of the authors work at the Institut de Chimie des Substances
Naturelles, CNRS, Av. de la Terrasse, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex,
France. This laboratory is a very experienced MALDI laboratory, and
Alain Brunelle, a Physicist turned cell biologist, together with his biologically
trained colleagues, saw the potential of TOF-SIMS as a complimentary
technique to MALDI. Their justification and enthusiasm was sufficient enough
for their organisation to buy a TOF-SIMS from us, and they continue to
carry out innovative work applying TOF-SIMS to cell chemistry. An
increasing number of papers from this group and others are being
published showing results for biological and pharmaceutical
applications, as a consequence of the introduction of cluster ion
sources to the TOF-SIMS technique.
The Journal web-site advises that reprint requests should be addressed
to Dr. Alain Brunelle at the CNRS.
Anyone who is interested in exploring the possibilities of TOF-SIMS for
biological applications should e-mail us via the contact page on this
web-site.
Overlay of negative secondary ion images obtained from a rat brain section under the irradiation of Bi3+ primary ions. red : m/z 255 + 283, green: m/z 892, blue: m/z 771
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09.11.2005
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TOF-SIMS Training Courses
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We are currently running training courses in the operation of TOF-SIMS instruments and in data interpretation. These are sponsored by the European Union under the FP6 research programme, although the course content is the responsibility of ION-TOF GmbH. The courses are open to anyone in the European Union who has recently joined a TOF-SIMS laboratory or received a TOF-SIMS instrument.
We decided that some hands-on training was necessary and so we are limiting each group of trainees to six people. Dr Derk Rading, our Senior Application Scientist, one of whose normal roles include customer training, was the ideal choice as the course organiser and principle teacher. After an introductory seminar on the first day, two days are spent in a TOF.SIMS 5 laboratory learning to use the instrument itself, followed by a second seminar on the fourth day to study the data evaluation software.
The final formal event is to present each trainee with a certificate of completion of the course, which we hope will serve them well in the future.
For the informal events, on the final evening we make a short tour of Muenster before a dinner in the "Pfefferkorn" restaurant in the historical center of Muenster.
The first two courses took place in October 2005. Our first group was a European mixture from France, Italy and Germany. The second course was attended by trainees from Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Anyone who would like to participate in these training courses, please contact Claudia Schirdewan for further details or to have their names added to the waiting list.
The trainees of our two courses, mentally saturated with technical information, but still smiling.
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10.11.2005
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American Vacuum Society 52nd International Symposium and Exhibition, Boston, MA
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Recently representatives from both ION-TOF USA and ION-TOF GmbH attended the 52nd Annual AVS International Symposium and Exhibition in the Hynes Convention Center, Boston, MA.
The symposium which ran from October 30th through November 4th has a large number of concurrent scientific sessions discussing the latest scientific breakthroughs. With over 2,000 attendees this years symposium was on a level with the previous show in Anaheim, CA.
The Exhibition which ran from October 31st through November 2nd is one of the world's major trade shows for surface analysis and vacuum technology exhibits. There were over 160 companies displaying their latest products and services. We would like to thank everyone for stopping by the ION-TOF booth, it was great to see all the old faces as well as some new ones too.
The ION-TOF booth at the 52nd Annual AVS Symposium in Boston, MA.
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14.12.2005
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Materials Research Society Fall Meeting, Boston, MA
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Nathan Havercroft from ION-TOF USA and Sven Kayser from ION-TOF GmbH recently attended the Materials Research Society 2005 Fall Meeting in the Hynes Convention Center, Boston, MA.
Meeting highlights can be seen at the MRS web page, but included a fashion show entitled, 'Wearables Runway – A Revolution in Textiles' that highlighted clothing made possible by Materials Research.
We would like to thank everyone for stopping by the ION-TOF booth and the scientific poster presented by Nathan Havercroft.
The ION-TOF booth at the MRS 2005 Fall Meeting in Boston, MA.
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