The ever increasing interest in surface analysis techniques with excellent depth resolution, great detection sensitivity, and good throughput has been a driving force for development of dynamic secondary ion mass spectrometry using low energy primary beams. This work investigated sputtering erosion of Si and emission of secondary ions from Si bombarded by sub-keV O-2(+) beams at glancing incidence. It was demonstrated that surface roughening remained minimal for 250 and 500 eV O-2(+) beams at an angle of incidence above 80 but developed rapidly at angles between 60 and 80. The depth resolution for B and Ge appeared very different at the glancing incidence and changed dramatically in opposite ways as the angle of incidence decreased. The difference in the depth resolution was explained by the different diffusion/segregation behavior between B and Ge during O-2(+) bombardment. In general, the use of sub-keV O-2(+) beams at the glancing incidence (above 80) favored a thinner altered layer, a short surface transient, a minimal apparent shift in depth profiles, a better depth resolution (not for B in Si), a good sputter rate, but a poor yield of the positive secondary ions. To address the issues with the low ion yield, we identified optimal cluster ions for common dopant such as boron and nitrogen. Good sensitivity was achieved for analyses of boron in Si by detecting BO2- as the characteristic secondary ion. A parallel study published elsewhere suggested SiN- as an ideal candidate for detection of nitrogen in ultrathin oxynitride [Z. X. Jiang et al., Surf. Interface Anal. (in press)]. For analyses of thin SiGe films in Si at glancing incidence, detection of Ge+ provided fairly good sensitivity. Applications of an O-2(+) beam at 250 eV 83 for analyses of shallow boron implant demonstrated superior accuracy in the measured near-surface boron distribution. Also the characterization of thin SiGe films exhibited excellent depth resolving power for Ge in Si although the ion yield of Ge+ was low. (c) 2008 American Vacuum Society.