High-brightness negative ion beams, especially O- beams, from a compact gaseous plasma source are studied to evaluate the suitability for high-resolution SIMS. Ion-optical calculations are made using the beam parameters from the new source. Results suggest that sub-100 nm spot with O- beam current of 10 pA is achievable. Beam focusing, the resulting beam current distributions at the target and the expected instrumental performance are discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.