Oxygen induced enhancement effects in optical emissions from a FeNi targetby Kr+ ion bombardment

The light emission from a polycrystalline FeNi alloy by 6 keV Kr+ ion beam sputtering in presence of oxygen has been studied, Measurements of decay fe atures in spectral lines of Fe I and Ni I indicate that there is a preferen tial oxidation of Fe in oxygen ambient substantiating the results obtained by other surface analytical techniques. The present experiment illustrates the possibility of using bombardment-induced light emission spectroscopy as a complementary technique for analysis of relative oxidation states of the elements on the surface of the compound targets.