Aspects of the performance of a femtosecond laser-pulsed 3-dimensional atom probe

Specimen heating is shown to occur in the laser-pulsed 3-dimensional atom probe (3DAP), even in the case of femtosecond pulse lengths. This can have an impact on the spatial resolution of 3DAP analysis, due to surface diffusion, and peak temperatures must be kept sufficiently low to avoid these effects. Similarly, mass resolution can be limited in the analysis of low thermal conductivity materials, due to the slower cool-down of the specimen after the pulse. In such cases, the use of lower repetition frequencies and specimens with large shank angles is shown to improve mass resolution and reduce the noise and degradation in quantitative accuracy resulting from increases in base temperature.