Advances in Imaging and Electron Physics

Chapter Two

Laser-assisted atom probe tomography

Lorenzo Rigutti    Normandie University, Groupe de Physique des Matériaux, UNIROUEN, UMR CNRS 6634, St Etienne du Rouvray Cedex, France, [e-mail]

Abstract

Chapter 2 is an introduction to the physics of field evaporation and the to the APT technique. We introduce quantities and notions that will be developed in the following chapters.

Keywords

Atom probe tomography; 3D reconstruction; Composition measurement; Detection efficiency

1 Field-assisted ion evaporation

Atomic Probe Tomography (APT) is based on ion evaporation by field effect. The configuration of the experiment is reported in the diagram of Fig. 1A. When a DC voltage $V_{DC}$ is applied to a needle-shaped specimen with nanometer-scale ...