Electron spectroscopy

These analytical techniques are used to identify and determine the elements and their electronic structures from the surface of a test sample.

[1][2] Chemical information is obtained only from the uppermost atomic layers of the sample (depth 10 nm or less) because the energies of Auger electrons and photoelectrons are quite low, typically 20 - 2000 eV.

[1] The development of electron spectroscopy can be considered to have begun in 1887 when the German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovered the photoelectric effect but was unable to explain it.

In 1905 Albert Einstein (1921 Nobel Prize of Physics) explained Planck's discovery and the photoelectric effect.

In 1967, Siegbahn published a comprehensive study of XPS and its usefulness, which he called electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis (ESCA).

Concurrently with Siegbahn's work, in 1962, David W. Turner at Imperial College London (and later Oxford University) developed ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) for molecular species using a helium lamp.