Primary excitation spectra in XPS and AES of Cu, CuO: Relative importance of surface and core hole effects

Quantitative interpretation of structures observed in XPS and AES requires models to correct for various physical processes involved. Besides the initial excitation process in XPS and AES, the measured spectrum is affected by three additional effects: the corehole(s), transport to the surface region and passage through the surface and vacuum regions. These three effects can be calculated by the QUEELS-XPS software (Quantitative analysis of Electron Energy Losses at Surfaces) in terms of energy-differential inelastic electron scattering cross sections. From this and the QUASES software (Quantitative Analysis of Surfaces by Electron Spectroscopy), background contributions and primary excitation spectra are obtained for various transitions (Cu 2p from Cu or CuO and Cu L3M23M23) and we investigate the separate effect of bulk, surface, and core hole(s) excitations. We show that the shape of the XPS and AES primary spectra and background contributions are modified slightly by surface effects and very strongly by core hole(s) effects. For metals, the intrinsic excitations give rise to a prominent spike in the background close to the XPS-peak energy. This spike will be much reduced for wide band gap insulators. Moreover our method gives an easy procedure to obtain the true primary excitation spectra for XPS and AES.