An elastic recoil detection analysis technique with swift heavy ions has been developed to measure high resolution depth profiles of light elements in thin films and multilayer systems. A depth resolution of 1 nm was achieved with a Q3D magnetic spectrograph using a high quality 120 MeV 197Au12 beam. The depth resolution was tested with 12C recoil ions from 12C/11B multilayers. Due to the large solid angle used (2 msr) and large scattering cross sections only low ion currents ( ≈ 109 ions s) are necessary for good statistics within a few minutes of irradiation. The method was applied to depth profile analysis of light elements in a-Si:H/a-SiC:H multilayer systems. Alterations in the multilayers induced by the heavy ion beam have been observed during long lasting irradiations and might limit the depth resolution when profiling small elemental concentrations.    «

An elastic recoil detection analysis technique with swift heavy ions has been developed to measure high resolution depth profiles of light elements in thin films and multilayer systems. A depth resolution of 1 nm was achieved with a Q3D magnetic spectrograph using a high quality 120 MeV 197Au12 beam. The depth resolution was tested with 12C recoil ions from 12C/11B multilayers. Due to the large solid angle used (2 msr) and large scattering cross sections only low ion currents ( ≈ 109 ions s) are...    »