Surface-Specific Analytical Techniques

Many new surface analytical techniques have appeared over the last few years, and their proliferation has led to some confusion about what sort of information is provided by each, and what is the appropriate field of application. In this paper those techniques that are surface-specific are described and discussed, i.e. those that give information about the surface only, the surface in this context being the first few atom layers, extending to about 5 nm. The coverage is restricted to those techniques providing elemental or chemical analysis, or both, so that structural techniques are excluded. They are grouped according to the method of initial excitation, i.e. electron, photon or ion, and where appropriate comparisons will be made to emphasize their respective advantages and disadvantages.