Multiplet splitting for the XPS of heavy elements: Dependence on oxidation state

Multiplet splittings in X-ray Photo-electron Spectroscopy, XPS, are a means of distinguishing different open shell occupations, or different oxidation states, in a material being studied. Indeed, especially for 3d transition metal complexes, they have provided fingerprints of the metal oxidation state. The present work provides theoretical and experimental evidence that it may also be possible to use multiplets to characterize the oxidation state of heavy metal, lanthanide and actinide, cations in complexes. However, it is important to make a proper choice of the XPS region to study in order to obtain large multiplet splittings. We identify a low binding energy, BE, peak that had been observed for Ce(III) in CeOx as a high spin coupled multiple Furthermore, we show that a low BE feature with reasonable intensity is characteristic of other XPS regions and of other metals. This feature arises from a high spin multiplet and serves as a fingerprint to distinguish closed shell from open shell cations. Evidence is presented that it may also be possible to distinguish different open shell occupations. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.