Controlled surface neutralization: A quantitative approach to study surface charging in photoemission

Photons when used to probe poorly conducting materials induce emission of secondary electrons that are inadequately compensated from the sample ground giving rise to a phenomenon commonly known as sample charging. In case of photoemission spectroscopy of an insulating material the data obtained from the charged surface are accordingly distorted. Here we have used a controlled neutralization technique to obtain photoemission data from continuously varying equilibrium charging conditions from two dissimilar insulating polymeric systems. A quantitative scheme for data analysis has been developed to demonstrate systematic behavior in the apparently distorted spectra and the charging peak shift has been described by an effective model. It is shown that the neutralization responses are non-linear for both the systems and possess intrinsic similarity. Around a critical electron flux the neutralization of the samples appears to occur through the percolation of homogeneously dispersed surface domains.