Static TOF‐SIMS. A VAMAS interlaboratory study. Part II — accuracy of the mass scale and G‐SIMS compatibility

An interlaboratory study involving 32 time‐of‐flight static SIMS instruments from 13 countries has been conducted. In Part I of the analysis of data, we showed that 84% of instruments have excellent repeatabilities of better than 1.9% and that a relative instrument spectral response (RISR) can be used to evaluate variations between different generic types of instrument. Use of the RISR improves comparability between instruments by a factor of 33. Here, in Part II, we study the accuracy of the mass scale calibration in TOF‐SIMS and evaluate instrument compatibility with G‐SIMS. We show that the accuracy of calibration of the mass scale is much poorer than generally expected (?60 ppm for peaks <200 u and ?150 ppm for a large molecular peak at 647 u). This is a major issue for analysts. Elsewhere, we have developed a detailed study of the factors affecting the mass calibration and have developed a generic protocol that improves accuracy by a factor of 5. Here, this framework of understanding is used to interpret the results presented. Furthermore, we show that eight out of the ten participants submitting data for G‐SIMS could use operating conditions that generated G‐SIMS spectra of the PC reference material. This demonstrates that G‐SIMS may be conducted with a wide variety of instrument designs. © Crown Copyright 2007. Reproduced by permission of the Controller of HMSO. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.