Auger Electron Spectroscopy of fcc Metal Surfaces

Abstract

The energy spectra of Auger electrons from clean Au, Ag, Cu, Pd, and Ni surfaces have been determined. Uniform deposition of a second metal onto clean metal surfaces has made it possible to assess the depth of the surface region which contributes to the Auger peaks in the secondary electron energy distribution characteristic. These results indicate that the mean escape depth for Auger electrons in Ag (without significant loss of energy) varies between 4 and 8 Å for energies of 72 and 362 eV, respectively. It has been shown (using Auger electron spectroscopy for detection of surface imuprities and low-energy electron diffraction for determining surface structure) that a clean Au (100) surface is reconstructed into a (1×5) structure, while clean Ag (100), Cu (100), and Pd (100) surfaces are characterized by bulk atomic arrangement. The combination of these two techniques has also been effectively applied to the interpretation of the structure and composition of CuAu surface alloys.