Abstract
Since the binding energies of electrons in core levels are characteristic of a particular element, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS or ESCA) in its simplest form can be employed to produce an elemental analysis of a polymer surface. However a more detailed consideration of the information levels available from XPS has led to more comprehensive structural determinations for polymers, in terms of both the structural features present at the surface, and how the outermost few layers of the material differ from the subsurface and bulk sample. In this article a description of the application of XPS to the investigation of polymer surfaces is presented with the aid of some current examples. An emphasis is placed on the measurement of absolute and relative binding energies and, absolute and relative signal intensities, which is often sufficient to characterize a given polymer surface. For certain exceptions however it is also necessary to consider the
Published Version
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