Evaluation of polymeric standard reference materials for monitoring the performance of X-ray photoelectron spectrometers

Abstract

The use of standard reference materials is a common practice in X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS or ESCA). Recently, several polymeric standard reference materials have become available for monitoring various performance aspects of ESCA spectrometers. These reference materials include polyethylene (PE), polyethylene glycol (PEG), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and dimethyl silicon (DMS). The advantages and disadvantages encountered when using these materials as standards were investigated in this study. Results indicated that PEG, PTFE and DMS are useful standards for checking or determining relative elemental sensitivity factors for C, O, F and/or Si. These three materials can also be used for monitoring the linearity and stability of the instrumental binding energy scale. However, in general, metallic standards such as gold, silver and/or copper are superior to the polymeric standards for this purpose, because their photoelectron lines cover a wider binding energy range and their respective peak positions are much better known. Although PE exhibits a fairly narrow C1s line that can be used to monitor variations in the instrumental energy resolution, the FWHM observed for the C1s line is much broader that the FWHM values obtained from the appropriate lines of sputtered-cleaned metals. Results also indicated that the use of PTFE as a standard reference material must be done with caution, because PTFE readily degrades with time under X-ray exposure.