New generation nuclear microprobe systems

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, the minimum probe size for nuclear microscopy has stayed around 1 μm with only a few groups reporting a sub-micron probe size around 0.5 μm. No breakthroughs in nuclear microprobe design have been forthcoming to produce dramatic improvements in spatial resolution. The difficulties of breaking the constraints that are preventing reduction of the probe size have been well recognised in the past. Over the past 5 years it has become clear that some of these constraints may not be as limiting as first thought. For example, chromatic aberration clearly is not as significant as implied from first-order ion optics calculations. This paper reviews the constraints in view of th..