<br/>X-Ray Photo-electron Spectroscopy, XPS, is widely used to obtain information about both the composition and the chemical bonding of materials, The interpretation of the XPS in terms of chemical interactions is very commonly focussed on the shifts of core-level binding energies, BEs, to infer the chemical state of the material. In particular, a shift to higher BE is taken as indicating that the ionized atom is more positively charged, and the reverse is taken for shifts to lower BEs. However, there are other reasons for shifts in BEs besides charging; these include changes in hybridization and changes in bond distance. Furthermore, there are other features of the XPS besides BE shifts from which chemical properties of the material can be inferred. These include the number, width, and relative intensity of the main and satellite peaks of the often complex XPS spectra. The physical and chemical origins of these features allow them to be related, especially with guidance from theory, to the electronic structure of the material. An important mechanism is the angular momentum coupling of the open shell electrons which often leads to unresolved features and broad observed peaks. It will also be shown that this angular momentum coupling must be taken into account in order to understand the complex features observed in the near edge features of X-Ray adsorption.This subject is especially appropriate for a symposium honouring Prof. Hajo Freund since he has made pioneering contributions for the correct interpretation of XPS spectra.

Extracting chemistry from the analysis of core-level spectra

2019 Spring National Meeting

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