If a surface exposed by cleaving a mica sheet is sprayed immediately with distilled water from an atomizer, the water seems to disappear as it uniformly wets the surface. If several seconds had been allowed to pass before the surface were sprayed, the water would bead up in distinctly visible droplets. In that brief moment the surface has been contaminated by organic vapors from the laboratory air; even at a pressure of atmospheres, a complete monolayer of contamination can condense on a surface in less than an hour. Such layers may determine the characteristics of the surface with respect to lubrication, corrosion, catalysis, emissive properties and adhesion; yet prior to 1967 no general method existed by which the surface composition could be analyzed.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
April 1975
April 01 1975
Inner‐shell spectroscopy
Many methods are available whereby transitions involving core electrons reveal the identities of atoms in the surface region and their local electronic environments.
Physics Today 28 (4), 52–59 (1975);