Quantitative determination of the composition of nitrided layers on iron using AES

Synthesis and characterization of iron nitrides. An XRD, Mössbauer, RBS and XPS characterization

“…XPS and AES have been extensively used to characterize the surface of iron nitrides. [8] However, the common surface oxidation of the samples when exposed to the atmosphere, and modification of the surface composition when they are sputter cleaned, is a clear handicap of these techniques when they are used to determine the composition of the films. In a previous study, [9] iron nitride thin films obtained by the same method were characterized by RBS, AES-depth profiling, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and vibrating sample magnetometry (VMS).…”

Discrimination between γ′‐Fe4N and ε‐Fe2–3N iron nitride compounds using PCA of Auger electron spectra

“…The Auger electron spectra were acquired under continuous argon sputtering (4 kV Ar C , 4 ð 4 mm 2 , ion emission current of 20 mA and argon gas pressure of 20 mPa) in order to remove any oxygen contamination. 7 No differentiation or smoothing was applied to the spectra, since it is known that this can affect the obtained results in a negative way. 9,13 All spectra and line scans were evaluated using the PHI-Multipak software (version 6.1), including PCA end FA.…”

“…3). The composition was determined from the measured Auger electron energy peak intensities according to the quantification procedure using both the 0 -Fe 4 N and ε-Fe 2 -3 N. 7 The nitrogen concentration profile consists of two plateaus. Adjacent to the surface, a layer of about 5 µm thick containing 26 at.% nitrogen is present, corresponding with the ε-phase.…”

“…study will be discussed in a forthcoming paper. 7 Chemical state information can be obtained from AES measurements, using factor analysis (FA). FA is a multivariate numerical technique that enables the determination of the number of relevant compounds and their respective fractions, e.g.…”