Sub‐micron molecular imaging. A viability study by time‐of‐flight SIMS

The possibility of sub‐micron imaging of molecular species on surfaces has been explored using a recently developed time‐of‐flight (TOF) imaging SIMS instrument which is equipped with a micro‐focused (∼500 Å) liquid metal ion source. Two model systems have been studied involving very thin (conducting) layers of organic materials on clean metals: a nonylphenol ethoxylate surfactant on gold and the peptide gly‐gly‐gly on aluminium.