Energy referencing of Auger electron spectra from charging samples by implanted inert gas spectra

Abstract The use of implanted, inert-gas-atom Auger peaks for energy referencing on charging substrates has been investigated. Ar implanted into Cu, Au, BeO, Al 2 O 3 , SiO 2 and Si 3 N 4 was studied along with Xe implanted into Cu, Au and Si 3 N 4 . A linear relationship was always found for plots of the energy of an Auger peak from any sample versus the energy of the Ar or Xe Auger peaks. However, in some cases, the slope of such plots deviated significantly from unity. A slope within ± 5% of unity was observed in 15 out of 19 plots. Thus for an energy shift due to charging of 20 eV, the energy of Auger peaks can generally be fixed to ± 1 eV using this technique.