A secondary electron emission correction for quantitative auger yield measurements

The Auger electron yield from the de-excitation of L_2,3 core holes of Cu is determined, in the approximation of isotropic emission, from the integral of the characteristic (elastic) Auger emission. The characteristic emission function is obtained from the secondary electron spectrum in two steps: First, the cascade background at a given Auger line is characterized accurately by the method of cascade linearization and subtracted. In the second step the resulting line is debroadened by an approximation to deconvolution debroadening. The concept of modulation stability is introduced as a criterion for credibility of the results of this analysis.