Abstract
Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) is a surface-sensitive mass spectrometric technique with high mass resolution and provides chemical information about the surface of a solid sample without any chemical pretreatments. A significant advantage of TOF-SIMS over other techniques is its ability to obtain mass spectral imaging, which allows the direct location of the molecular or fragment ions of interest at a cellular level with submicrometer spatial resolution in biological samples. In this paper, we describe the current state of the art of TOF-SIMS in biological samples, and focus on the applications in chemistry of plant cell walls including lignin, heartwood extractives, and paper chemistry.
