Test of elastic electron scattering corrections for quantitative XPS

Abstract Ratios of the experimental XPS peak intensities from seven metals were compared to two first‐principle theories corresponding to neglecting and including the effects of elastic electron scattering, i.e. the common formalism and the Monte Carlo model, respectively. The theoretical peak intensities were found to change by an average of 14% as a result of elastic scattering, but the standard deviation from experiment was practically the same, namely ∼15% for both theories. The deviation between experiment and theory is found to be random when elastic scattering is neglected, while a small systematic component is revealed when elastic scattering effects are included. The fact that no general reduction is observed in the deviation between experiment and theory is attributed to the error origination from parameters like the photoionization cross‐sections and the inelastic electron mean free paths. These errors apparently overshadow to a large extent the improvements of including the effects of elastic electron scattering.