Launched in 1999, the Stardust spacecraft has travelled a long way for over seven years to its comet encounter. On Jan. 2, 2004, Stardust flew past the nucleus of comet Wild 2 at a distance of 240 kilometres (149 miles). During this close flyby, a special collector captured particles of the comet as the spacecraft flew through the coma, or cloud of dust and debris, surrounding Wild 2. Two years and 13 days after this first-of-its-kind cometary sample mission, the Stardust spacecraft ejected a capsule that descended into the desert of Utah on the 15th January 2006.

Now after the successful touch down of the capsule, Dr Thomas Stephan and his team are waiting for the important new sample. They will be one of the first of six groups to have a closer look at the collected particles. Dr Thomas Stephan has long experience in the TOF-SIMS analysis of extraterrestrial particles and will use his TOF-SIMS IV for the new valuable samples. We are proud that our instrument might help to find out more about our origins.

"Ten years of planning and seven years of flight operations were realized early this morning when we successfully picked up our return capsule off of the desert floor in Utah," said Tom Duxbury, Stardust project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The Stardust project has delivered to the international science community material that has been unaltered since the formation of our solar system."

Comets are believed to be the oldest, most primitive bodies in the solar system, possibly comprised of some of the basic building blocks of life. They contain the remains of materials used in the formation of stars and planets, holding volatile, carbon-based rich elements that are likely to provide clues about the nature of the building blocks of our solar system. Importantly, they may provide evidence that comets brought water to the Earth, making possible life.

With the prospect of comets offering this treasure house of ancient information, there is significant anticipation about what findings scientists will be able to extrapolate from a firsthand examination of cometary materials. There is a real possibility of scientific findings that will change the way we view our origins.

ION-TOF user Vincent Smentkowski, with the help of Professor Luke Hanley, is organizing a symposium at the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006 conference. Entitled Surface Microscopy and Microanalysis in Materials and Biological Systems, the symposium will cover a broad range of material, with invited talks emphasizing state of the art surface analytical instrumentation, advanced data analysis tools, and the use of complimentary surface analytical instrumentation to perform a complete analysis of complex materials and biological systems. Also up for discussion are current and future surface analytical challenges.

Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006 (MM2006) will be held July 30-August 3, 2006 in Festival Hall at Navy Pier, Chicago IL. It is one of the premiere meetings of the year for scientists and technologists interested in learning about the latest advances in applications and techniques for the analysis of a broad range of materials in the biological and physical sciences, as well as nano- and bio-technology.

Meeting attendees are urged to contribute both platform and poster presentations to supplement the invited talks. It should be noted that extended abstracts are due on Feb 15, 2006 and can be submitted on-line at http://bono.cup.org/.
Travel awards are available for students.

CSMA, the UK materials analysis service company in the CERAM group, have recently taken delivery of a TOF.SIMS 5. It will be used by CSMA's team of specialist surface scientists in surface characterisation and troubleshooting for a wide range of industries, including; pharmaceuticals, packaging, food, housewares. It will also help ensure that CSMA, which is part of CERAM, retains a world ranking position in this area of technology.

CSMA already has many of the world's blue chip pharmaceutical, medical device, semiconductor and automotive and aerospace companies as its clients, and is now enjoying a period of development and expansion. This is being driven by the demands of its clients to perform ever more technologically demanding applications, looking at new product developments as well as technological support for patent claims.

The company has been involved in assisting developments in a broad range of applications from innovative drug encapsulations, cardiovascular stents, orthopaedic implants, laser surface cleaning studies for aerospace, proteins on surgical instruments etc.

The technology is not confined to large high tech companies however, as, through its parent company CERAM, CSMA is able to offer its services to many smaller companies with support from local agencies such as the UK's Advantage West Midlands.

Dr Ian Fletcher from ICI Measurement Science Group is not only an expert in Cricket. Everybody who has visited the vendors' talks during SIMS XV knows this already. He is also a man of practical and efficient solutions. This time he wanted to quench freeze samples in Nitrogen slush and avoid any condensation on the sample surface before the sample is safely in the evacuated loadlock. Therefore he has designed a practical glove box for his TOF-SIMS IV.

The glove box is constructed of acrylic sheet with a simple flexible interface to the TOF-SIMS IV airlock and ports for gloves so that samples can be handled inside the box. The space inside the glove box is easily sufficient to accommodate a nitrogen slush device, and any other sample preparation requiring an inert atmosphere. The box is flushed continuously with high purity Nitrogen gas to remove air and water.

Many samples will benefit from the clean sample preparation, for instance organic tissue and surface modified materials.

If you would like to learn more about customised configurations for the TOF.SIMS 5 please go to ION-TOF Customised Configurations

TASCON USA is based in Chestnut Ridge, NY, next door to ION-TOF USA, Inc. In Europe ION-TOF uses TASCON GmbH as an application laboratory for selling and demonstration work, and this close co-operation has been very successful for many years. We have set up the same arrangement in Chestnut Ridge, so American customers can see a professional instrument demonstration in America.

The main contact person at TASCON USA is the very experienced application scientist Dr Albert Schnieders, who is well-known by many of our customers from his long-term service activities for ION-TOF USA, Inc. A new TOF.SIMS 5-300 instrument has now been installed in Chestnut Ridge. This instrument has the optimum configuration for surface spectroscopy, chemical mapping and depth profiling, and will be available for both new customers requiring analytical service and existing customers with too much work for their own instruments.

We know that many analysts in North America, both with and without their own TOF-SIMS, have been looking forward to the improved possibilities resulting from this new TASCON laboratory.

For further information, please contact TASCON USA, Inc. at the following address:

TASCON USA, Inc.
Bldg. A-8
100 Red Schoolhouse Road
Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977
USA

Albert Schnieders
www.tasconusa.com



TASCON USA's laboratory, equipped with a TOF.SIMS 5-300.

We are happy to announce that a patent has been granted for the application of Bismuth Clusters in SIMS (DE 10339346). Announced in 2004, the Bismuth source has meanwhile become the standard primary ion source on all new ION-TOF systems.

The Bismuth ion source is the only ion source in the field which provides optimum performance for both organic and inorganic TOF-SIMS applications. It combines the fundamental benefits of cluster ion bombardment, such as superior efficiency and sensitivity, with a high brightness source. This allows unique data rates, lateral and mass resolution.

This source has given ION-TOF a clear technological lead in the SIMS market place, and we are pleased that the new ion source technology is replacing the Gallium or Gold primary ion sources. The flexible design of our instruments has enabled many of our users to upgrade their instruments to the new Bismuth source already.

If you would like to learn more about the Bismuth cluster ion source please go to information request.

The TOF.SIMS 5 is being increasingly used in biomedical research and recently in particular in cell chemistry. The main reason for this is the introduction of the Bismuth primary ion source which constitutes a big improvement in performance for molecular analysis and enables sub-micron organic molecule mapping, a key requirement. MALDI users are limited to mapping resolutions in the order of some microns, and they see TOF.SIMS as a useful complimentary technique.

TOF-SIMS cell chemistry articles are now appearing in high quality journals:

MICROSCOPY RESEARCH AND TECHNIQUE
Nygren, H.; Börner, K.; Malmberg, P.; Tallarek, E.; Hagenhoff, B.: Imaging TOF-SIMS of Rat Kidney Prepared by High-Pressure Freezing. In: Microscopy Research and Technique, 68, 2005, pp. 329–334.

JOURNAL OF MASS SPECTROSCOPY
Brunelle, A.; Touboul, D. and Laprévote, O.: Biological tissue imaging with time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy and cluster ion sources. In: Journal of Mass Spectroscopy, 40, 2005, pp. 985-999.

ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Sjövall, P.; Lausmaa, J.; Johansson, B.: Mass Spectrometric Imaging of Lipids in Brain Tissue. In: Anal. Chem., 76, 2004, pp. 4271-4278.

BIOPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Breitenstein, D.; Batenburg, J. J.; Hagenhoff, B.; Galla, H. J.: Lipid Specificity of Surfactant Protein B Studied by Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry. In: Biophysical Journal, 91, 2006, pp. 1347-1356.

In addition the Editor of the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry chose a rat brain image taken with a TOF.SIMS 5 for the front cover of Volume 10, Issue 16 (see also the News about: J. Am. Soc. Mass. Spectrom. publishes a biological TOF-SIMS paper in the News Archive 2005).

Any readers interested in this TOF-SIMS application should go to our contact page and send an enquiry. More papers on this subject are promised and we will keep you informed via this news page.

Our fourth Users Meeting was held immediately following SIMS Europe 2006.

The first event was the social evening. The venue was, as usual, kept a secret until the buses took about 90 customers and staff to the Hot Jazz Club at the harbour of Münster, which was booked exclusively for ION-TOF that night.

After an excellent buffet dinner, we were entertained by the Spanish Jazz band ”Txell Sust & August Tharrats Blues Trio“ and their very attractive singer. The band‘s enthusiastic and top class performance, the typical low-ceiling jazz club atmosphere, and the previously unknown musical and dancing talents displayed by some of the audience, provided a great evening in good company.

On the following day, we assembled at the Technology Centre just opposite the ION-TOF building for a programme of talks and discussions. ION-TOF staff presented news of the company and gave a thorough and extensive overview of the most recent technical developments.

Five of the users gave very interesting presentations on their establishments and TOF-SIMS applications, ranging from cell chemistry to semiconductor trouble shooting, and were rewarded with a gift in appreciation of their efforts. A tour of the factory and the opportunity of personal discussions with our experts finished off the day.

Txell Sust & August Tharrats Blues Trio performing at the Hot Jazz Club.