A VUV isochromat spectrometer for surface analysis

A vacuum ultraviolet isochromat spectrometer employing an energy selective Geiger-Müller photon counter is described. The mean energy of the spectrometer is 9.7 eV with a standard deviation of ±0.23 eV. Together with the thermal energy distribution of the electrons emitted from a directly heated tungsten cathode, an overall resolution of ±0.33 eV is obtained. Pulsed operation of the x-ray tube avoids additional broadening due to the voltage drop across the filament. Further, pulsed operation of the accelerating voltage is employed to avoid counting losses due to the relatively large dead time of the radiation detector. Operating frequencies of up to 2 kHz are possible. With sensitivities of typically 10⁷ pulses per Coulomb, the anode currents are in the range of 100–200 μA. These attractive properties suggest to employ the method to study surface electronic properties of solids.