NUANCE staff at 64th AVS International Symposium
Tampa, FL (October 29, 2017) -- NUANCE’s Keck-II surface science facility manager, Prof. Xinqi Chen, attended the
64th AVS International Symposium and Exhibition at Tampa Florida from Oct 29 to Nov 3. 2D materials seemed to be the hottest topic at this conference, as it appeared on the focus topic session program each of the five days. Except for small number of presentations on graphene, the majority reported research progress on growth and properties of TMD films. Many talks focused on heterostructure growth and surface modification and their electronic applications.
In Applied surface science division, new development and application of XPS and ToF-SIMS were prominent topics. More and more XPS systems seem to be utilizing a ‘cluster ion’ source instead of ‘monatomic ion’ source for depth profiling. The cluster ion source has an obvious advantage for organic films because of the low damage and penetration. For SIMS, Bismuth cluster is the major primary ion source as it seems to provide the best spatial resolution while still generating adequate volume of high-mass fragments. Prof. Chen visited with many manufacturers and seemed impressed with various innovations; PHI presented a nanoTOF equipped with a tandem mass spectrometer which showcased advantages for big molecules, while IonToF presented a SIMS/SPM combination which is very good for nanoscale characterization.