QUANTITATIVE AUGER DEPTH PROFILING OF Ni/C MULTILAYERS BY FACTOR ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON WITH T-DYN SIMULATIONS

Jozef Liday - Miroslava Čatárová - Eva Matušková - Rastislav Kosiba - Gernot Ecke - Peter Vogrinčič - Juraj Breza

   The paper presents the measured depth distribution of elements and of their chemical states in a Ni/C multilayered structure prepared by pulse laser deposition (PLD), the thicknesses of respective layers being d_C=1.7nm and d_Ni=2.1nm. By simulating the sputtering process and applying factor analysis to the measured Auger depth profiles we have found that the measured depth distribution is notably affected by the process of sputtering (mainly by atomic mixing and preferential sputtering), and that nickel and most likely also carbon are contained in the multistructure in two basic chemical states, namely as pure elements and as a carbide.

Keywords: Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), quantitative AES, depth profiling, factor analysis, simulation of sputtering

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