| AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Applied Surface Science | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session AS-TuP |
| Session: | Applied Surface Science Poster Session |
| Presenter: | M. Bravo-Sanchez, CINVESTAV-Unidad Queretaro, Mexico |
| Authors: | M. Bravo-Sanchez, CINVESTAV-Unidad Queretaro, Mexico F. Espinosa-Magaña, CIMAV Unidad-Chihuahua, Mexico A. Herrera-Gomez, UAM-Azcapotzalco and CINVESTAV-Queretaro, Mexico |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
The thickness of metal oxide nanolayers can be assessed through X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) measurements. This is done by comparing the signal from oxide and metallic XPS peaks. The correct assessment of the oxide layer thickness depends on how accurate the peak areas are quantified through peak fitting. Since the oxide and metallic peaks overlaps in XPS spectra, the calculation of their areas could be tricky. This is specially the case for iron since the Fe 2p peak, which is the iron peak most employed in XPS experiments, is largely asymmetric. In this work, we show that the assessment of the peak areas can carry errors as large as 120% if the traditional Shirley background is employed. The problem is solved by the use of the “active” background removal method, in which the background intensity is optimized during the peak-fitting process. This method is described in detail, as well as its software implementation. The results are supported with High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy micrographs.