Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) is an important tool in the study of nanoscale composition of biological materials- For example, nanoscale SIMS has been used successfully to study important processes for bioenergy, such as nutrient transport in the rhizosphere, structural characterization of cell walls, and metabolic pathways in complex systems- Researchers use SIMS to collect high-spatial- resolution maps of the elemental or isotopic composition of nanoscale samples; however, current instrumentation is slow, requiring long data acquisition times and providing limited resolution- This prevents researchers from obtaining the most accurate spatial information- Many of these limitations would be alleviated with a better-performing ion source-
