Chemical Surface Analysis with Nanometer Depth Resolution

Abstract

The characterization of surface chemical species with respect to their identity and quantification becomes a very demanding task in the case of submicron or nanoscale materials and systems. In such cases, the major part of atoms or molecules with in a typical analytical volume of about 10?12 cm3 must be considered as surface related. Although some times pushed to the current instrumental limit, the use of the three most important surface analysis techniques X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) can provide the scientific community with the necessary analytical tools to identify and quantify chemical entities on the surface of nanoscale objects.