An investigation of hydrogen depth profiling using ToF‐SIMS

Hydrogen depth distributions in silicon, zinc oxide, and glass are of great interest in material research and industry. Time‐of‐flight SIMS has been used for hydrogen depth profiling for many years. However, some critical information, such as optimal instrumental settings and detection limits, is not easily available from previous publications. In this work, optimal instrumental settings and detection limits of hydrogen in silicon, zinc oxide, and common glass were investigated. The recommended experimental settings for hydrogen depth profiling using time‐of‐flight SIMS are: (i) keeping pressure in the analysis chamber as low as possible, (ii) using a cesium beam for sputtering and monitoring the H^– signal, (iii) employing monatomic ion analysis beams with the highest currents, and (iv) using interlace mode. In addition, monatomic secondary ions from a matrix are recommended as references to normalize the H^– signal. Detection limits of hydrogen are limited by the pressure of residual gases in the analysis chamber. The base pressure of the analysis chamber (with samples) is about 7 × 10^?10 mbar in this study, and the corresponding detection limits of hydrogen in silicon, zinc oxide, and common glass are 1.3 × 10¹⁸ atoms/cm³, 1.8 × 10¹⁸ atoms/cm³, and 5.6 × 10¹⁸ atoms/cm³, respectively. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.