MAGNESIUM K-ALPHA X-RAY-LINE STRUCTURE REVISITED

The majority of X-ray photoelectron spectrometers continue to rely on achromatic X-ray sources. Whilst useful effort has been directed at methods of removing the broadening and satellite structure due to the X-ray source function, less attention has been paid to the details of the source function itself. The commonly used functions fail to address the complete removal of the X-ray induced structure. Problems, which include residual satellite intensity and the production of oscillations adjacent to the main photopeak base, can actually be removed by fine tuning the function without resorting to increased filtering. The structure of MgKalpha X-rays, for application to XPS, has been re-examined for the Kalpha1, Kalpha2, Kalpha', Kalpha3, Kalpha3', Kalpha4, Kalpha5 and Kalpha6 components.