CSMA Open Days are a Runaway Success

CSMA successfully completed a number of industry based open days in October and November.

Whilst the main objective was to demonstrate the new ToFSIMS (Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry) capabilities many visitors took the opportunity to learn more about CSMA’s increased analytical services following the acquisition of MATS-UK.

Tutorials about the ToFSIMS techniques were given and several “free” samples were analysed to demonstrate the unique resolution of the Bi ion source. Bi offers a 100 times sensitivity increase over traditional primary ions such as Ga.

	Image showing a single human hair The hair was analysed and the resulting image shows a chemical map of the hair. This information was used to identify the exact location of hair products.
	Image showing a scalpel blade (top) and a ToFSIMS image of a scalpel blade (bottom) The scalpel was half covered and then plasma-treated, the ToFSIMS image shows the red un-cleaned part and the blue cleaned part of the scalpel. This information has been used to investigate the benefits of plasma cleaning of medical instruments.