Practical surface analysis: state of the art and recent developments in AES, XPS, ISS and SIMS

Abstract

This review considers the well established and most frequently applied surface analysis techniques: AES, XPS, ISS and SIMS in a comparative manner, confronting fundamental principles and present instrumental performance with the requests of the scientist. The primary goal of surface analysis is the determination of the elemental composition of the outermost atomic layer of a solid. In addition, characterization of binding states, of homogeneity and of structural details will often be required. Whereas the information gathered generally contains also contributions from deeper layers, the inherent high in depth resolution of the techniques allows thin film analysis with high precision. Thus, surface analysis includes the analysis of interfaces and thin films by depth profiling. Recent progress has led to improvements e.g. in sensitivity, spectral resolution and data acquisition and handling. With the trend to high spatial resolution, surface analysis is becoming a special branch of microlocal analysis. Quantification is of primary interest. However, the variety of approaches and their dependence on instrumental parameters hamper interlaboratory comparisons, pointing out the need of standardized methods and correction procedures, of well characterized test samples and of accurate data banks. Advance in precise quantification will depend on future progress in our understanding of matrix effects and beam‐sample interactions.

Detection limits in XPS for more than 6000 binary systems using Al and Mg Kα X‐rays

“…5 . This eliminates E i from Eqn (12), and, since the ratio of I i to S i is provided by Eqn (4) in terms of the material properties of the matrix, the detection limit is independent of the choice of the matrix photoelectron peak, i.…”

Sputter depth profiling: past, present, and future

“…The year 1985 saw the first ECASIA conference taking place in Eindhoven (NL) in 1985, where the present author gave his first plenary lecture, a review of practical surface analysis . At that time, during his PhD thesis, Anton Zalar studied in detail the dependence of Δ z in Ni/Cr multilayers on the ion incidence angle, with the result depicted in Fig.…”

SnS/N-Doped carbon composites with enhanced Li+ storage and lifetime by controlled hierarchical submicron- and nano-structuring

“…2d), proving the presence of SnS. 6,37,40,43,44 Scheme 1 Schematic illustration of the experimental procedure and proposed formation mechanism for the hollow (top) and dense (bottom) SnS submicrospheres composed of self-assembled nanosheets embedded in a nitrogen-doped carbon shell. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the intermediates H-SnS 2 and D-SnS 2 are shown in Fig.…”