Photoelectron binding energy shifts observed during oxidation of group IIA, IIIA and IVA elemental surfaces

An extensive re-evaluation of XPS binding energies (BE's) and binding energy shifts (ΔBE's) from metals, oxides and the carbonates of the group II, III and IVA elements (exceptions are Be, Mg and Hf) has been carried out using a substrate specific BE referencing approach. From this, O-1s BE's are found to fall into surface oxide, bulk oxide and carbonate groupings, with bulk oxides showing the lowest BE's followed by surface oxides (+∼1.5 eV) and then carbonates (+∼3.0 eV). The O-1s BE's from the bulk oxides also appear to scale with 1/d, where d is inter-atomic distance. The same is noted in the ΔBE's observed from the metallic counterparts during oxidation of the elemental surfaces. This, and the decreasing BE exhibited by Ca, Sr and Ba on oxidation is explained within the charge potential model as resulting from competing inter- and intra-atomic effects, and is shown to be consistent with partial covalency arguments utilizing Madulung potentials. The ΔBE's also fall into groups according to the elements location in the periodic table, i.e. s, p or d block. These trends open up the possibility of approximating ΔBE's arising from initial and final state effects, and bond distances.