Working Smarter™ with Surface Analytical Techniques

The Working Smarter 2010 Seminar reviews many surface, bulk, and microanalytical techniques used in high-tech industries. This course is designed to provide engineers and scientists with the information necessary to effectively choose the most appropriate analytical tool for common materials research, process development, failure analysis, and production quality control application. Attendees will increase their knowledge of analytical methods and their understanding of how these techniques can be applied most effectively to different technologies, problem solving, or research situations. Currently in its 22nd year, the Working Smarter Series is the leading tutorial seminar on surface, bulk, and microanalytical techniques for professionals in high-tech industries.

In addition to our regularly scheduled seminar dates, we also work with companies to present the Working Smarter course in-house. By having the seminar hosted onsite, companies avoid travel costs for employees, and they can focus the discussion on their particular technical issues and have an open dialogue with the instructor without worrying about competitors hearing the conversation. If you are interested in scheduling your onsite seminar, please contact us at .

Who Should Attend?

Engineers, lab managers, research, and development personnel.

This course will benefit anyone facing material, surface analysis and characterization problems. The experienced professional will gain breadth of knowledge in techniques complementary to their core skills, and individuals new to the field come away with an excellent overview of the range and application of many techniques.

What You Will Learn:

The latest techniques and instrumentation for surface, bulk, and thin film characterization
The techniques that are best used in different applications
The basic fundamentals of each technique (how do they work?)*
How to better interpret data to get the most information from your analysis
Strengths and limitations of each technique

*Note that the operation of instruments is not discussed.

Why Take This Seminar?

With the knowledge gained from this seminar, you will be able to make more informed decisions about which technique to use, thereby getting to relevant data quicker and reducing the cost of analytical services.

Course Contents:

Section 1.

An Introduction to Surface, Bulk, and Microanalytical Tools

Section 2.

Microanalytical Techniques

Scanning Probe Microscopy
Scanning Electron Microscopy
Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometry
Focused Ion Beam
Transmission Electron Microscopy
Scanning TEM
Auger Electron Spectroscopy

Section 3.

Surface Organic Techniques

X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy
Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry
Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
Raman Spectroscopy
Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry

Section 4.

Thin Film Techniques

Accelerator Techniques: RBS, HFS, PIXE, NRA
Low Energy X-ray Emission Spectrometry
X-ray Reflectivity

Section 5.

Fundamentals and Applications of SIMS

Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry

Section 6.

Surface and Trace Metal Analysis Techniques

Vapor Phase Decomposition
Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence
SurfaceSIMS
TOF-SIMS Surface Metals

Section 7.

Bulk Techniques

Glow Discharge Mass Spectrometry
Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry
Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry
Instrumental Gass Analysis
X-ray Fluorescence
X-ray Diffraction

Section 8.

Summary: Selecting the Appropriate Analytical Technique

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