Review
"Atom Probe Tomography: Analysis at the Atomic Level"
by M. K. Miller, Kluwer/Plenum, ISBN 0-306-46415-2.
A new book on the three-dimensional atom probe (3DAP) technique
entitled "Atom probe tomography" by Dr. Mike Miller at Oak Ridge
National Lab incorporates the most up-to-date technical information on
this technique and is a must to read for those who are interested in the
analysis of metallic materials at the atomic level using this technique.
The author previously published two excellent text books on the atom
probe technique, "Atom Probe Microanalysis" in 1989 from MRS and
"Atom Probe Field Ion Microscopy" in 1996 from Oxford Science
Publications. There is a definite reason for the book to be written only
four years after the publication of the rather comprehensive textbook.
When the last book was published, the three-dimensional atom probe
was still in the emerging stage. However, in the last four years, this
technique has spread to several atom probe laboratories around the
world from the two pioneering groups that contributed the most to the
development of the technique, Oxford and Rouen. Because of this,
many interesting results have been obtained in the last four or five years
in varous labs. In addition, the technique itself is reaching a maturing
stage from the experimental stage. Nowadays, cheaper and more
reliable optical detectors are commonly used rather than the
heavyweight multiple anode detector for parallel detection of ions. The
reflectron energy compensator is commonly used in the recent models
of the three-dimensional atom probes, and a new specimen preparation
method for analyzing the compositional change in the normal direction
to multi-layer thin films has been developed. All of these new
developments are incorporated in this textbook. Chapter 1 overviews
the historical evolution of the technique with some selected examples of
recent 3DAP data. After looking at these amazing atom maps by 3DAP,
the readers will be convinced as to why the author chose the new
terminology, Atom Probe Tomography, for the book title. Chapter 2
gives a detailed account on the specimen preparation techniques
including the most recent one with the focused ion beam (FIB)
technique. In Chapter 3, the author gives a detailed description of the
field ion microscopy technique. Since atom probe analysis can be
conducted easily even without understanding the field ion microscopy
technique, students do not have much chance these days to learn how to
obtain good images and interpret them properly. Hence, the tutorial
chapter for FIM is quite important, because it is essential to obtain good
FIM images for acquiring high quality atom probe data. Chapter 4 gives
the details of the instrumentation incorporating its progress in the last
four years. Chapter 5 describes various experimental factors that have
to be considered for actual work. This chapter is useful for those who
are actually engaged in the operation of the instruments. Chapter 6
describes various methods for data analysis and presentation of the
3DAP data. This chapter is particularly useful, because the data analysis
methods that have been used for the conventional atom probe technique
are updated for the 3DAP technique. Finally, the best part of this text
book is the addition of a bibliography which contains a comprehensive
list of references on the application of the three-dimensional atom probe,
which allows the readers to find all the literature currently available on
this technique. The table in the Appendices are also useful for practicing
the atom probe analysis. This book is suitable for researchers as a
reference and for students as a textbook. The publication was very
timely, and the book is written very well .
Reviewed by K. Hono, National Institute for Materials Science,
Tsukbua 305-0047, Japan
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