SAFIR (Système d’Analyse par Faisceaux d’Ions Rapides) exploits the interactions between beams of rapid ions from a Van de Graaff accelerator, and the atoms in a solid to be analysed, to probe composition and structure of thin (<1um) and ultra-thin (<10nm) films. The Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) techniques RBS (Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry), ERDA (Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis), NRA (Nuclear Reaction Analysis), et NRP (Nuclear Resonance Profiling) are available in each of 5 specialised analysis end-stations, and a new Medium Energy Ion Scattering (MEIS) endstation for very high depth resolution analysis (<1nm) is currently under development. For all of these analytical methods ion channeling can be used to get information on the atomic ordering – point and extended defects, epitaxial relationships, and strain fields in single crystal samples.
Contact : Ian Vickridge & Emrick Briand
