Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-90780-9
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Funding
- Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation [KAW2016.0358]
- Swedish Research Council VR Grant [2018-03957]
- Swedish Energy Agency [51201-1]
- VINNOVA [2019-04882]
- Carl Tryggers Stiftelse [CTS 17:166, CTS 15:219, CTS 14:431]
- Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU) [2009-00971]
- Swedish Research Council [2018-03957] Funding Source: Swedish Research Council
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Chemical state analysis in X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) relies on assigning well-defined binding energy values to core level electrons originating from atoms in particular bonding configurations. Here, direct evidence is presented for the violation of this paradigm, as the C 1s peak due to C-C/C-H bonded atoms from adventitious carbon (AdC) layers splits into two distinctly different contributions. This finding exposes fundamental problems with the reliability of reported XPS data and suggests discontinuing the use of adventitious carbon in XPS.
Chemical state analysis in X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) relies on assigning well-defined binding energy values to core level electrons originating from atoms in particular bonding configurations. Here, we present direct evidence for the violation of this paradigm. It is shown that the C 1s peak due to C-C/C-H bonded atoms from adventitious carbon (AdC) layers accumulating on Al and Au foils splits into two distinctly different contributions, as a result of vacuum level alignment at the AdC/foil interface. The phenomenon is observed while simultaneously recording the spectrum from two metal foils in electric contact with each other. This finding exposes fundamental problems with the reliability of reported XPS data as C 1s peak of AdC is routinely used for binding energy scale referencing. The use of adventitious carbon in XPS should thus be discontinued as it leads to nonsense results. Consequently, ISO and ASTM charge referencing guides need to be rewritten.
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