The first SXFive has been successfully installed at CAMPARIS Center for Microanalysis at Pierre et Marie Curie University. The new instrument will increase CAMPARIS's ability to support mineralogists and geologists in this well-known university.

Our new EPMA has already been selected by more than 10 organizations, among which the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa, India, Adelaide Microscropy, a multi-user facility serving three Universities in Adelaide and the research community in South Australia, De Beers Group Exploration Laboratory Services, South Africa and BRGM, France's leading institute in earth science applications.

The IMS 1280-HR (and previous IMS 1280 instruments) can be equipped of a new sample holder with larger front surface size.

This holder reduces the geometrical X-Y effects that are known to limit the reproducibility for stable isotope analysis. Oxygen isotope ratio analyses performed up to 8mm from the center show an excellent spot-to-spot reproducibility: below 0.2 permil. The new holder also significantly increases the available area on the sample, and the number of samples that can be analyzed in automated mode (possibly overnight). Precision is improved & throughput is increased!
Results were presented at the 6th Biennial Geochemical SIMS Workshop, in Hawaii in November, you may request a pdf of the presentation.

The CAMECA IMS Wf / SC Ultra now offers Extreme Low Impact Energy (EXLIE) SIMS conditions that give access to ultra high resolution depth profiling. By reducing the impact energy, depth resolution is continuously improved, reaching sub-nm levels while maintaining excellent detection limits!

EXLIE depth profiles on a Boron 200eV implant with 3nm thermal oxide layer clearly surpass the results obtained using the common PCOR method.

Further results were presented at the SIMS XVIII conference by Dr A. Merkulov. Full paper is available on request.

Several of our most recent IMS 7f and IMS Wf customers are world-leading companies and research institutes in solar energy and LED lighting:

-> The Engineering Research Center for Luminescence Materials & Devices at Nanchang University, China just took delivery of its instrument.

-> Two other major players in the Asian LED and PV cell industry also selected the IMS 7f and IMS Wf, confirming the great potential of our SIMS instruments to boost R&D and improve product performance of PV and LED devices.

We have recieved several orders for the latest model of our large geometry SIMS, the IMS 1280-HR. These succeses confirm our leadership in the fields of stable isotope analysis, in-situ geochronology and small particle analysis. Among our new customers: the Institute of Mineralogy and Geology at University of Lausanne, Switzerland, led by Prof. Lukas Baumgartner, focusing, among others, on the interpretation of ages in metamorphic rocks.

We are extremely proud to have received several NanoSIMS 50L orders in 2011 from prestigious institutions including the University of Tokyo for wood studies, JAMSTEC in Japan for marine microbiology studies, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in USA for bio-geochemistry and materials, and University of Utrecht in the Netherlands for geochemistry...

What's more, remarkable papers including NanoSIMS measurements were recently published in high profile journals, illustrating the varied capabilities of the NanoSIMS… and the talents of our users!
-> Microfossils of sulphur-metabolizing cells in 3.4-billion-year-old rocks of Western Australia. D. Wacey et al., NATURE GEOSCIENCE, Published online 21 Aug 2011
-> High Pre-Eruptive Water Contents Preserved in Lunar Melt Inclusions. Erik H. Hauri et al., SCIENCE, Published online May 26 2011.

-> Full control of the NanoSIMS through the internet: once the sample holder has been transfered in the analysis chamber, stage travels, selection of analysis positions, tuning and acquisition can be monitored from a remote computer.

-> The upper part of the primary ion column has been redesigned, allowing the instrument to reach higher primary beam current (Cs+ Ip > 2nA for spot < 1µm and Ip >10nA for spot <3µm). This allows a better use of the seven possible Faraday Cups with isotopic ratio reproducibility in the range of only a few tenths per mil.