Determination of the surface excitation correction in elastic peak electron spectroscopy for selected conducting polymers

Inelastic mean free paths (IMFPs) determined by elastic peak electron spectroscopy (EPES) have been frequently evaluated neglecting surface excitations that affect the elastic peak intensity for a sample and a reference material. The surface excitation correction is defined by the surface excitation parameter, P s , denoted by SEP. SEPs for eight selected conducting polymers (polythiophenes, polyaniline and polyethylene) undoped and doped with Pd were determined by EPES using Ag , Ni and Si reference materials for electron energies between 0.2 and 2.0 keV. The mean percentage deviations between IMFPs uncorrected for surface excitations and those calculated with the predictive formulae of Gries and Tanuma et al. were 4.32 and 27.32%, respectively. Relevant deviations for IMFPs corrected for surface excitations were 2.97 and 22.90%, respectively.