Quantitative analysis of carbon in cementite using pulsed laser atom probe

Carbon quantification and the standardisation in a pure cementite were conducted using pulsed-laser atom probe tomography (APT). The results were analysed to investigate a dependence on three distinct experimental parameters; the laser pulse energy, the cryogenic specimen temperature and the laser pulse frequency. All the measurements returned an apparent carbon content of 25.0±1.0 at%. Carbon content measurements showed no clear dependence on the cryogenic temperature or the laser pulse frequency. However, the results did demonstrate a strong correlation with the laser pulse energy. For lower laser pulse energies, the analysis returned carbon contents higher than the stoichiometric ratio. It was suggested that this effect is due to pile up of 56Fe++ at the detector and as a consequence there is a systematic preferential loss of these ions throughout the course of the experiment. Conversely, in experiments utilising higher laser pulse energies, it was found that the carbon contents were smaller than the stoichiometric ratio. In these experiments an increasing fraction of the larger carbon molecular ions (e.g., C5 ions) were detected as part of a multiple detection events, which could affect the quantification measurements.