SURFACE-ANALYSIS - CURRENT CAPABILITIES

Although the principal surface analytical techniques are now about 25 years old, they continue to make significant advances, e.g. in the provision of improved spatial resolution. In addition, new techniques emerge regularly, and some of these have assumed considerable importance in only a short time. Among both the well established and the newer techniques rapid progress would not have been possible without equally rapid developments in the handling of large amounts of data and in the technology of data and image processing. This paper describes these advances and how they have been able to contribute to progress towards the ultimate goal of rapid and accurate compositional and chemical analysis of the surface and near surface regions of materials. (C) 1993 The Institute of Materials.