A Total Variation regulator for the extraction of step function depth profiles from ARXPS data

Simulations were conducted to generate and invert noisy ARXPS data, starting from known pseudo-step-function depth profiles. In the recovery of the depth profiles, a 1st-order Tikhonov regulator was compared with a Total Variation regulator. It was found that the profiles extracted using the Total Variation regulator tended to better resemble the true profile in the case of a single step function.