Thickness determination of uniform overlayers on rough substrates by angle-dependent XPS

Gunter, P. L. J.; Niemantsverdriet, J.W.

doi:10.1016/0169-4332(95)00014-3

Cited by 49 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…This will give rise to a shadowing effect which depends on the details of the shape and distribution of the aggregates. 10,11 In order to improve the resulting analysis by ARXPS we then tried to minimize the roughness effect in the quantification by normalization of data taken from the same substrate of the respective samples before film growth. These are expected to have similar roughness as the grown film.…”

Section: Analysis Of the Thin Zno Filmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Surface roughness and island formation effects in ARXPS quantification

Martín-Concepción¹,

Yubero²,

Espinós³

et al. 2004

Surface & Interface Analysis

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Quantification of surface nano-structures by angle-resolved XPS (ARXPS) is straightforward and works quite reliably for perfectly flat surfaces of amorphous materials. For rough surfaces, the interpretation of ARXPS is, however, complicated because the angular variation of the XPS peak intensity depends on the surface roughness. Even for ideally flat substrates, ARXPS analysis of laterally inhomogeneous surface structures grown on the surface is quite complex. The reason is that neighboring nano-clusters shadow the XPS peak intensity. The effect depends on cluster shape as well as the distribution of clusters on the surface. In addition the effects depend on the flatness of the underlying substrate. The interpretation of ARXPS then becomes quite complex. In the present paper, we have studied this problem by analyzing ZnO nano-clusters grown on substrates of SiO 2 and Al 2 O 3 . Thus we compared the results of quantification by the four techniques: ARXPS, XPS-peak shape analysis, Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy and x-ray fluorescence spectrometry. While the latter three techniques gave consistent results, the results of the ARXPS analysis were way off. This deviation is discussed in terms of the above-mentioned shadowing effect of neighboring clusters as well as roughness of the underlying substrates. Different normalization methods in the ARXPS analysis procedure are compared and it is found that some of the observed problems for the substrate peaks (but not for the peaks from the overlayer film) can be reduced by applying reference samples with similar roughness for normalization of the data. In conclusion, the ARXPS technique is very much dependent on surface roughness as well as on the morphology of the thin films. Thus for reliable quantification with ARXPS it is necessary to have independent knowledge on surface roughness as well as the distribution of islands of the thin films.

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Section: Analysis Of the Thin Zno Filmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…8,9 The problems encountered for rough surfaces has also been the topic of several papers. 10,11 Quantification of surface nano-structures by ARXPS is straightforward for perfectly flat surfaces of amorphous solids where diffraction and forward focusing effects can be neglected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface roughness and island formation effects in ARXPS quantification

Martín-Concepción¹,

Yubero²,

Espinós³

et al. 2004

Surface & Interface Analysis

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“…The most frequently published evidence is associated with XPS and ARXPS, [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] followed by AES, [27][28][29] REELS, 30,31 and EPES. [32][33][34][35] Below, several examples are mentioned for an illustration.…”

Section: ·1 Experimental Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gunter et al [15][16][17] have published a procedure associated with measurements of the overlayer thickness on rough substrates. The authors calculated the overlayer/substrate intensity ratios for corrugated and flat surfaces for a number of overlayer thickness, experimental geometries, and various magnitudes of surface roughness.…”

Section: ·3 Simple Correctionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electron Spectroscopy of Corrugated Solid Surfaces

Zemek

2010

ANAL. SCI.

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This paper reviews work done of the influence of non-ideal surface topography on electron spectral intensities of surface-sensitive electron spectroscopic methods: primarily X-ray induced photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and concise Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), electron energy loss spectroscopy in the reflection mode (REELS), and elastic peak electron spectroscopy (EPES). Several attempts to solve the problem are mentioned, where (i) the effect of surface roughness is corrected using a single parameter, (ii) computer simulations based on a model of surface roughness composed of regular geometrical units are used for electron spectral intensity calculations, and finally, (iii) a semi-empirical method based on careful surface mapping of analyzed sample by atomic force microscopy (AFM) is discussed in greater detail. The first approach was found to be rather simple to properly include any complex surface topography. The second technique can help us to understand surface topography related phenomena. The latter method, suitable for arbitrary rough solid surfaces covered by conformal overlayer(s), can be incorporated in current quantitative procedures valid for ideally flat surfaces.

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