Presence of monovalent oxygen anions in oxides demonstrated using X-ray photoelectron spectra

The oxygen vacancy model has been used to explain the magnetic and electrical transport properties of dilute magnetic semiconductors and resistive switching. In particular, some authors have claimed that they found a symmetric peak corresponding to the oxygen vacancies in O1s photoelectron spectra. In this paper, using X-ray photoelectron spectra with argon ion etching, it is shown that this symmetric peak may also be interpreted as being related to O1- anions, rather than to oxygen vacancies. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.