Rapid determination of erosion rates with electron beam SNMS

Erosion rates for sputtering of granular samples with 5 keV argon ions have been determined by mass loss measurements and a much faster method using atomic intensities of SNMS. Additionally, plane metal samples were measured for comparison. The investigation of metallic, ionic, oxidic and organic materials has revealed the validity of the SNMS method. However, the morphology of the sample has turned out to be of influence due to the usual angled arrangement of the bombardment and the direction of analysis. The detection of an element in a plane surface has been found to be by a factor of 3 more sensitive than in rugged surfaces such as particle ensembles. For all powders except KCl a mean normalised erosion rate _AX ⁿ =2.3 nm · cm²/s · mA] has been obtained with a standard deviation of ±42% of the individual values. The erosion of KCl has been about a magnitude faster.