Surface analysis of semiconductors with SIMS

Characterization of semiconductor devices or materials is one of the most demanding tasks for analytical chemistry because the dopant elements which have to be determined are distributed within a thin surface layer. Their distribution has to be characterized with a spatial (depth) resolution of a few nanometers and high analytical accuracy. Since the local concentration of these dopant elements ranges from several percent to less than 1 ng g^?1, only those methods with the highest detection power can be successfully used. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) has emerged in the last few years as the most powerful analytical technique due to new instrumental and methodological developments.