Application of electron spectroscopies aided by the pattern recognition method for quantitative analysis of solid surfaces

Quantitative analysis of solid surfaces by AES or XPS involves determination of intensity of selected spectral features, usually the most pronounced, recorded for the constituents of a given sample. Such experiments are frequently accompanied by intensity measurements of the same features on standard samples. Differences between the spectra shapes corresponding to samples with different concentrations are neglected within this procedure. Much less frequently, the quantitative analysis is based on variation of the shape of the selected feature in the energy spectra. An attempt is made in this article to perform the quantitative analysis by relating the spectra shapes to composition using routines of the pattern recognition method