Determination of the inelastic mean free path of electrons in different polyaniline samples

Polyaniline specimens, emeraldine sulfate, emeraldine hydrochloride, and em eraldine base, were characterized by infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelec tron spectroscopy, elastic peak electron spectroscopy, and density measurem ents using helium pycnometry. This work has been stimulated by a considerab le interest in potential technological applications of polyaniline. The che mical state of polyaniline has been verified with infrared spectroscopy. X- ray spectroscopy was used for the qualitative and quantitative surface comp osition analysis of studied samples. The inelastic mean free path of electr ons has been determined from the measurements of the elastic electron backs cattering probability. This is one of the most frequent applications of ela stic peak electron spectroscopy. The inelastic mean free path is needed for the quantitative analysis of polyaniline surface using electron spectrosco pies. The method of elastic peak electron spectroscopy utilizes the theoret ical model of the electron transport, accounting for the multiple elastic s cattering events in the studied material. The inelastic mean free path valu es have been measured in the energy range 400-1600 eV. The resulting depend ence has been compared to the values obtained using the G1 predictive formu la of Gries.