Round Robin: Quantitative Lateral Resolution of PHI XPS microprobes Quantum 2000 / Quantera SXM

TL;DR

This paper assesses the quantitative lateral resolution of PHI XPS microprobes, highlighting how newer monochromators improve resolution and emphasizing its importance for analyzing small features in XPS spectra.

Contribution

It provides the first round robin comparison of the quantitative lateral resolution across multiple PHI XPS microprobes, demonstrating the impact of monochromator advancements.

Findings

Quantitative lateral resolution exceeds nominal beam diameter.

Newer monochromators correlate with better resolution.

Lateral resolution has improved over time.

Abstract

The quantitative lateral resolution is a reliable measure for the quality of an XPS microprobe equipped with a focused X-ray beam. It describes the long tail contributions of the X-ray beam intensity distribution. The knowledge of these long tail contributions is essential when judging on the origin of signals of XPS spectra recorded on small-sized features. In this round robin test the quantitative lateral resolution of 7 PHI XPS microprobes has been estimated. As expected, the quantitative lateral resolution has significantly larger values than the nominal X-ray beam diameter. The estimated values of the quantitative lateral resolution follow a trend in time: The newer the monochromator of an XPS microprobe so much the better the quantitative lateral resolution.