Experimental determination of the inelastic mean free path (IMFP) of electrons in selected oxide films applying surface excitation correction

• DOI: 10.1002/sia.2302
• Publication Date: 2006-03-29T10:47:32Z
• Authors: S. Gurban; G. Gergely; J. Toth; D. Varga; A. Jablonski; M. Menyhard
• Keywords: Auger electron spectroscopy

Abstract The inelastic mean free path (IMFP) of electrons was determined using elastic peak electron spectroscopy (EPES) with Cu, Si, Ag, Ni and Au reference samples. Systematic differences occurred between the experimental calculated (TPP‐2M) (Tanuma, Powell, Penn) IMFPs, which can be ascribed partly to surface losses. IMFP deduced from integrated ratio sample reference. Experiments were made ESA 31 (ATOMKI) DESA 100 (Staib) spectrometers, covered E = 0.2–2 keV energy range. results evaluated applying Monte Carlo (MC) simulation based on NIST SRD 64/3.1 database EPESWIN software Jablonski. excitation correction (surface parameter (SEP)) for SiO 2 , MgO Al O 3 our new procedure model Chen Tanuma. This reduced difference uncorrected, experimentally IMFPs by nearly 50%, proves importance contribution excitation. oxide layers studied are insulators. Their potential Auger peak. We observed an shift 1–3 eV positions due charging. SEP material resulted in a ch 1.2 4 . Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.