Element analyzing apparatus

Abstract

An element analyzing apparatus includes a secondary ion excitation source such as an ion gun, an ion optical system such as an imaging type energy filter and a mass spectrometer. A quadrupole mass spectrometer is used as the spectrometer. The quadrupole mass spectrometer has a construction in relation to (L.times.F).sup.2 >0.2, where L (meter) is a length of a quadrupole of the spectrometer and F (MHz) is frequency. Secondary ions emitted from a sample are accelerated to cause them to pass through the ion optical system and the quadrupole mass spectrometer under a condition with an energy more than a secondary ion energy constant in addition to an energy of the secondary ions emitting from the sample. The first mentioned energy may be ten times or twenty times the secondary ion energy constant. The element analyzing apparatus is capable of effecting the elementary analysis with high sensitivity and accuracy without lowering space resolution.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.