Simulation of the LMM auger spectra of copper

Abstract Quantitative Auger analysis is much more difficult to achieve than quantitative XPS, as the latter shows only one photoelectron peak when the former exhibits many relaxation peaks laying over a 100 ev range. A good way to check our understanding of the Auger process is to simulate spectra. For that we need to get an estimation of (i) the ionization probability and its variation with depth, (ii) the contribution of each ionization and relaxation processes, and (iii) the type of interaction between electron and solid. As the phenomena are basically the same for the transport of Auger electrons as for primary electrons, we used the same physical parameters and simulation models (layer by layer and Monte Carlo) as we previously used for the determination of the background in copper. A comparison between calculated and experimental results is presented.