Auger electron spectroscopy for quantitative analysis

A simple mathematical analysis shows that unless the ratio of the instrumental resolution width to the natural Auger linewidth is less than about 0.3, the measured line intensities do not represent accurately the atomic concentrations. To overcome this difficulty, a universal curve is presented whereby the experimentally measured line intensities can be corrected so as to represent quite accurately the relative atomic concentrations in one's sample. Unfortunately, however, the available sensitivity data required for quantification were not always measured with sufficient instrumental resolution. It is our contention that there is a need for new sensitivity measurements in which the required resolution is ensured.