C60, buckminsterfullerene:: its impact on biological ToF-SIMS analysis

The desire to apply the analytical abilities of the time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) experiment to increasingly diverse samples, particularly those of a biological nature, has provided the impetus for development of new technologies to overcome some of the inherent difficulties associated with such studies. Of these, one of the most important is the widespread introduction of polyatomic ion beams to increase the secondary ion yields of the higher mass, more chemically characteristic species. The introduction of the C-60 ion beam for routine analysis has made arguably the greatest impact, providing new possibilities for analysing molecular compounds present both on the surface and in some cases in the bulk of samples such as biological tissue sections and single cells. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.