An atom probe tomography prototype with laser evaporation

The results of development, creation, and tests of an atom-probe prototype with femtosecond laser evaporation and a position-sensitive microchannel detector with delay lines for the tomographic (3D) analysis of chemical composition of materials are presented. The atom-probe tomography is based on the principle of atom-by-atom “disassembling” of materials and projection magnification, which was previously used in field-ion microscopy, as well as the time-of-flight mass spectrometry that is applied to each evaporated ion. The prototype characteristics (mass resolution, spatial resolution, and data-collection efficiency) were demonstrated in study of tungsten.