Quantitative analysis of calcium and fluorine by high-sensitivity low-energy ion scattering: Calcium fluoride

Stanislav Průša (Corresponding author), Pavel Bábík, Tomáš Šikola, Hidde H. Brongersma

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    3 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Low-energy ion scattering (LEIS) probes the atomic composition of the outer surface. Well-defined reference samples are used for the quantitation. For elements like fluorine and calcium, it is not easy to find suitable, clean, and homogeneous references, since fluorine is a gas and calcium is a very reactive metal. In contrast to surface analytic techniques such as XPS, the extreme surface sensitivity of LEIS makes it difficult to use stable compounds like CaF2 as reference, since these compounds are not homogeneous at the atomic scale. With LEIS, CaF2 is not expected to show an atomic ratio F/Ca = 2.0. Thus, before CaF2 can be used as reference, its atomic surface concentrations have to be determined. Here, 3-keV He+ scattering by a LiF(001) single crystal, an evaporated layer of Ca, and a Cu foil are used as basic references. High-purity CaF2 is available in two forms: a single crystal and a powder. For a practical reference, powders are preferred, since if bulk impurities segregate to the surface, they will be dispersed over a large surface area. It is found that both CaF2 (111) and powder have similar F/Ca atomic ratios. This confirms the F termination for both samples. For the powder, the F and Ca signals are reduced by 0.77 ± 0.03 in comparison with those for the single crystal. The atomic sensitivity factors and relative sensitivity factors have been determined for F, Ca, and Cu.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1000-1003
    Number of pages4
    JournalSurface and Interface Analysis
    Volume52
    Issue number12
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2020

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    MEYS CR, Grant/Award Number: CzechNanoLab project (LM2018110); Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, Grant/Award Number: 17‐21413S; TACR: Advanced Microscopy and Spectroscopy Platform for Research and Development in Nano and Microtechnologies ‐ AMISPEC, Grant/Award Number: TE01020233

    Funding

    MEYS CR, Grant/Award Number: CzechNanoLab project (LM2018110); Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, Grant/Award Number: 17‐21413S; TACR: Advanced Microscopy and Spectroscopy Platform for Research and Development in Nano and Microtechnologies ‐ AMISPEC, Grant/Award Number: TE01020233 Funding information The authors gratefully acknowledge M. Szymonski and S. Facsko for supplying us with the LiF and CaF single crystals and Jindra Mach for his help with Ca evaporation. This work was carried out with the support of: CzechNanoLab Research Infrastructure supported by MEYS CR (LM2018110), Advanced Microscopy and Spectroscopy Platform for Research and Development in Nano and Microtechnologies ‐ AMISPEC (TE01020233, TACR) and the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (grant No. 17‐21413S). 2

    Keywords

    • Ca
    • calcium fluoride
    • Cu
    • LEIS
    • LiF(001)
    • surface termination

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