X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY BT - Handbook of Applied Solid State Spectroscopy

Abstract

Hailed as the “NMR of the periodic table,” X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), also known as electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA), is one of the most powerful and common chemical analysis techniques. XPS is based on the photoelectric effect in which the binding energy (E B) of a corelevel electron is overcome by the energy (hν) of an impinging soft X-ray photon, and the core-level electron is excited and ejected from the analyte. The kinetic energies of the ejected photoelectrons, E K, are measured by an electron spectrometer whose work function is φ. Invoking conservation of energy, the following relationship is obtained: