Potential of NanoSIMS for Life Sciences

For many biologists, material science belongs to the arcane domain of physics. While several surface analysis techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) or scanning electron microscopy (SEM) have been successfully used in life sciences, others are less known outside the material science community. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) is one of those techniques that is still largely unknown to biologists even after almost forty years of existence, partially because of its complexity and difficulties of communication between physics and biology. Nevertheless, the last decades have seen a number of applications in biology, suggesting that SIMS may also be useful beyond material sciences.