Research Focus

The main characterisation techniques we use is atom probe tomography (APT). APT analysis requires a needle-shaped specimen with a tip diametre of 30-100 nm. The surface atom is field evaporated by a combination of D.C. and either a high voltage pulse or a laser pulse, and then projected on a single-ion-detector, which records its x-, y- an z-coordinates. A built-in mass-to-charge spectrometer measures the time between the applied pulse and the arrival of the projected ion to resolve the mass-to-charge ratio. After the APT experiment, a three-dimensional reconstructed data can be obtained with individual elements spatially and elementally resolved. My current research areas are listed below.