Atom Probe Field Ion Microscopy of High Resistivity Materials

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, the atom probe has proved to be a powerful tool for studying nanometer-sized compositional fluctuations in a wide range of metallic alloys but has had only limited applications to semiconductors and ceramics. One of the primary reasons for this difference is the higher resistivity of semiconducting and ceramic specimens. Because of this high resistivity, the high voltage field evaporation pulse is attenuated before it reaches the apex of the specimen thereby making the pulse ineffective for field evaporation. Experiments have demonstrated that both variants of the voltagepulsed atom probe (i.e., those instruments in which the field evaporation pulse is applied directly to the specimen and those in which the negative pulse is applied to a counter electrode in front of the specimen) are equally affected. In this overview, the limits of applicability of the voltage-pulsed atom probe to high resistivity materials are examined.