SIMS of organics—Advances in 2D and 3D imaging and future outlook

Secondary ion mass spectrometry(SIMS) has become a powerful technique for the label-free analysis of organics from cells to electronic devices. The development of cluster ion sources has revolutionized the field, increasing the sensitivity for organics by two or three orders of magnitude and for large clusters, such as C60 and argon clusters, allowing depth profiling of organics. The latter has provided the capability to generate stunning three dimensional images with depth resolutions of around 5 nm, simply unavailable by other techniques. Current state-of-the-art allows molecular images with a spatial resolution of around 500 nm to be achieved and future developments are likely to progress into the sub-100 nm regime. This review is intended to bring those with some familiarity with SIMS up-to-date with the latest developments for organics, the fundamental principles that underpin this and define the future progress. State-of-the-art examples are showcased and signposts to more in-depth reviews about specific topics given for the specialist.