Abstract
We present an analysis of the critical factors for the determination of surface concentrations from derivative Auger spectra. A new spectroscopic quantity, __P__σ^2^, should supersede the peak‐to‐peak signal. This quantity is the product of the negative‐peak‐to‐background value, P, multiplied by the square of the width of the peak, σ. The method is applied here to Si and C in an SiC sample, but will apply to any multicomponent system. The analysis needs the derivative Auger spectra of the clean components and the sample in question. We also examine relevant changes in material properties between the reference materials and the SiC sample, as several properties of the SiCSiC system vary owing to large differences in atomic densities for the three materials. In this system, lineshapes, back‐scattering of primary electrons and inelastic mean free paths vary for the Auger electrons. Our analysis shows that the lineshape changes could induce errors in directly derived, uncorrected concentrations by factor of 2 (for SiC), while the two other corrections are on the 10% level. With the present method, an Ar ion bombarded surface of SiC shows only a slight enrichment of C, which is much less pronounced than without the corrections.