SIMULATION STUDY ON REGENERATION OF DEPTH PROFILES FROM ANGLE-RESOLVED XPS DATA

This simulation study investigates the influences of sampling schemes, errors in the data and depth profiling functions on the extraction of the depth profiles from angle-resolved XPS data. An equiangular sampl ing scheme is more susceptible to the ill-posedness in the inverse ope ration of the Laplace transform than equidistance or gravimetric sampl ings. The influence of errors in the data can be considerable, dependi ng on the types of depth profiles. Smooth depth profiling functions ar e well recovered, even for data with 10% errors. For discontinuous dep th profiles, regenerated depth profiles do not represent the sharp cha nge of original depth profiles at the interface. (C) 1997 by John Wile y & Sons, Ltd.