SURFACE MICROANALYSIS BY REFLECTION ELECTRON ENERGY-LOSS SPECTROSCOPY

Several basic physical concepts of applying eq. Ik = INxt to surface microanalysis by reflection electron energyloss spectroscopy (REELS) are clarified. Here Ik and I are the integrated intensities of the core ionization edge and the low loss part,is the scattering cross section of element x with atomic concentration Nx, and t is the specimen thickness. The reflected inelastic electrons are found to be distributed almost symmetrically around the Bragg sports and can be reasonably described by a Lorentzian function. EELS microanalysis can be performed by using the diffracted sports. Thecorrection, arising from the angular contributions of the neighbouring spots into the spectrometer collecting aperture, is required to be considered. Copyright1990 WileyLiss, Inc.