“…[ 54 ] It should be kept in mind, however, that most surface science studies on IL interfaces have been performed on ex-situ prepared fi lms so far. In spite of the novelty of the fi eld, a broad spectrum of experimental methods have already been applied to IL fi lms, among which are X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), [ 32-39 , 44 , 46-50 , 56 , 57 , 70 ] ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS), [ 33 , 35 , 40-42 , 70 ] infrared refl ection absorption spectroscopy (IRAS), [52][53][54][55] inverse photoelectron spectroscopy (IPES), [ 41 , 42 , 70 ] near edge X-ray absorption fi ne structure (NEXAFS), [ 41 ] metastable ion photoelectron spectroscopy (MIES), [33][34][35] direct recoil spectroscopy (DRS), [ 30 , 31 ] high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS), [ 34 ] low energy ion scattering (LEIS), [ 32 ] time-of-fl ight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS), [ 37 ] soft X-ray emission spectroscopy (SXES), [ 70 ] and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS). [ 71 ] The number of studies is yet rather limited, however.…”