Abstract
A comparison is made between methods for surface analysis which use low-energy electron beams, and methods such as those using surface conductance and field effect. The distinction between these two groups of methods is relevant to the case of semiconductors. Surface conductance and field effect measurements have a high sensitivity, 108–1010 excess charges per cm2 near the surface being detectable, but they do not reveal the chemical composition of the surface. On the other hand, Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), which uses low-energy electrons, is less sensitive, 1012–1013 foreign atoms per cm2 being detectable, but this method is highly specific with respect to the sort of atoms (and in some cases molecules) present on the surface. A number of applications of AES are given. Another method, that of low-energy electron diffraction (LEED), can only be used for surfaces of single crystals. With LEED, values of repeat distances at the surface can be found. In some cases these are very sensitive to the concentrations of foreign atoms.
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