SIMS Laboratory

View of the Cameca ims 6f at the GFZ

Update: On 13 September 2011 the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam signed a purchase contract for the acquisition of a Cameca 1280-HR instrument.  The acquisition of this new technology will open many new research opportunities for our world-wide user community.  The new instrument is scheduled for delivery in Potsdam in December 2012 and acceptance should be approximately 3 months later.  Routine operation of the new facility, which will emphasize high-precision isotope ratio determinations, will begin in mid-2013.  The currently available Cameca ims 6f instrument, which has been in operation since 1998, will be decommissioned by the GFZ in March 2012.


Section 4.2  of Division 4 of the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam operates a fully equipped Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (SIMS) laboratory. Our facility is based around a Cameca ims 6f magnetic sector ion microprobe; this highly automated tool provides both isotopic and trace element information at the micron-scale. Both GFZ and external scientists are invited to submit project proposals for laboratory access. All external project are conducted on a collaborative basis, whereby a GFZ scientist must be identified as project participant and this scientist will be involved in the publication of all results which are obtained from the SIMS analyses. All project proposals are evaluated by the SIMS external steering committee, which evaluates these proposals based on technical feasibility, scientific excellence and the overall relevance of the project toward achieving the facility's benchmarks of excellence. Applicants whose projects are judge to be of the highest standard are invited to use the SIMS laboratory and will be provided with adequate machine time in order to achieve the stated project objectives.

The GeoForschungsZentrum is a member of the Helmholtz Society of Research Institutions.

If you wish to obtain access to the GeoForschungsZentrum Ion Microprobe (SIMS) Laboratory, please follow to

Lab Access

SIMS Basics
Ion microprobes, also know as secondary ion mass spectrometers (SIMS), use a finely focused ion beam to probe a selected sample domain. A small percentage of the material sputtered from the polished surface of the sample is ionized, and these ions are accelerated into a mass spectrometer where they are separated according to their mass-over-charge ratio. An important characteristic of SIMS is its high sensitivity compared to other microbeam sampling techniques: the ability to count individual ions results in detection limits in the parts-per-billion range for many elements. Also the fact that ions derived from the sample are separated by their mass-over-charge ratio means that isotopic analyses can be performed on very small sample volumes.

MEMBERS OF THE LABORATORY'S EXTERNAL STEERING COMMITTEE:

• Prof. Dr. Rainer Altherr (Chairperson): Mineralogisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg
• Prof. Dr. Klaus Mezger, Institut für Mineralogie, Universität Münster
• Prof. Dr. Dave Rubie, Bayerisches Geoinstitut, Bayreuth
• Prof. Dr. Hans. A. Seck, Mineralogisches Institut, Universität Köln

STAFF OF THE GFZ SIMS LABORATORY: 

 

Dr. Michael Wiedenbeck	tel: ++49-331-288-1484	michawi@gfz-potsdam.de
Dr. Dieter Rhede	tel: ++49-331-288-1475	rhede@gfz-potsdam.de
Ilona Schäpan	tel: ++49-331-288-1455	ilona@gfz-potsdam.de