VAMAS surface chemical analysis—a unifying approach for the 1990s

The VAMAS SCA programme, which started in 1984, has increased to a total of 31 projects, of which seven have now been completed. These projects fall into five main sectors: (1) the development or validation of the basic theory for the physical processes involved in AES, XPS, SIMS or sputterred neutral mass spectrometry (SNMS); (2) the understanding and calibration of the measuring instruments; (3) the development or validation of software for date reduction and for communication; (4) the development of reference materials; (5) the determination of reference data. Progress in all sectors is strong and coordination brings together workers in the three main trading zones of Europe, the USA and Japan, despite their physical separation. Results show that this coordination accelerates progress and improves the quality of the work undertaken. Brief details of the individual projects are given, showing that major progress has occurred; however, it is clear that very much still remains to be done.