Improved Airlock

A sample's tendency to degas can be greatly reduced by prolonged advanced storage under high vacuum.  With the goal of further suppressing the hydrogen background of our system, we have designed a sample carousel which can hold 12 samples under vacuum.  This chamber was commercially machine outside the GFZ and has now been installed and test on our SIMS.  The new arrangement makes use of the original Cameca 2-sample airlock, which now acts as the sample loading airlock between atmosphere and the 12 sample carousel.  The larger airlock is fully integrated with the SIMS vacuum fail-safe logic.  We have also developed our own electro-pneumatic fail-safe system for the small airlock.

Thanks to this new arrangement, we are able to store all sample for several days under vacuum prior to moving them from the carousel to the secondary ion source.