Investigation of organic coatings and coating defects with the help of time-of-flight-secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS)

Among the commercially available surface analytical methods time-of-flight-secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS)plays a prominent role. This is due to its outstanding surface sensitivity combined with the detailed molecular information obtained. Therefore, the method is extremely well suited for the chemical characterization of the uppermost layers of the material under study. The detailed knowledge about the composition of these layers can be favourably used to support the development of coatings and to elucidate coating defects. This article describes the principles of TOF-SIMS and illustrates its ability by a number of examples from daily work. The samples analysed include typical coating defects, such as cratering and delamination, as well as undisturbed coating layers where we were interested in the chemical composition of the uppermost layers. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.