Determination of the Lα_1,2 and Lβ X-ray emission spectrum of iron using a photoelectron spectrometer

Abstract

HIGH resolution X-ray emission spectra that arise from valence band inner shell electronic transitions contain detailed and valuable information about the electronic structure of molecular orbitals or the band structure of solids¹. The operation of the dipole selection rule (Δl = ±1) enables s and p character from specific atoms to be identified. Unfortunately the resolution available with commercial X-ray fluorescence spectrometers (E/ΔE∼400) is sufficient to produce spectra of only limited value. The spectral broadening inherent in an X-ray photoelectron spectrometer is usually much less than 1 eV which suggested to us that such an instrument might be modified to produce high resolution ‘X-ray spectra’ by the expedient of observing the photoelectron spectrum generated when a sample is irradiated with the X-ray spectrum of interest. We report here that the only modification needed to convert a photoelectron spectrometer to yield X-ray conversion spectra is a modification of the anode. C 1s in graphite was found to be an acceptable convertor level.