Probing liquid surfaces under vacuum using SEM and ToF-SIMS.

We report a newly developed self-contained interface for high-vapor pressure liquid surfaces to vacuum-based analytical instruments. It requires no wires or tubing connections to the outside of the instrument and uses a microfluidic channel with a 3 μm diameter window into the flowing fluid beneath it. This window supports the liquid against the vacuum by the liquid's surface tension and limits the high-density vapor region traversed by the probe beams to only a few microns. We demonstrate this microfluidic interface for in situ liquid surfaces in a time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometer (ToF-SIMS) and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with chemical analysis. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2011