Electron scattering correction of x-ray-excited Ni and Cu KLL Auger spectra emitted from thin and thick metallic samples

High-energy Cu and Ni KLL Anger lines, excited by Mo and Cu bremsstrahlung, were measured for polycrystalline metallic samples as web as for thin (10 nm) films deposited onto Si substrates, to determine the respective Anger transition energies and probabilities.(1) The spectra of homogeneous samples show a broad tail of inelastically scattered electrons, This tail is strongly suppressed in the thin-film spectra, These spectra have been subjected to a recently proposed background subtraction procedure,(2) accurately accounting for the details of the signal electron emission process (depth distribution of the emitting species, elastic scattering, experimental geometry, etc.). As a result, the inelastic tail is removed in the background-corrected spectra, Comparison of the spectra from the thin films and the homogeneous samples after background correction provides an experimental test of the background subtraction procedure. In our case these corrected spectra are essentially identical, proving the consistency of the method applied, Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.