Table 7.

Comparisons of surface characterization methods.

Technique	Information Provided	Depth	Type of Analysis	Detection Limit
TOF-SIMS	Chemical bonding and elemental	~1–2 nm	Mostly qualitative, or semi-quantitative, standard difficult to prepare	0.01–0.1 at % atomic concentration
XPS	Chemical bonding, oxidation state, and elemental	~5 nm	Quantitative	0.1–1.0 at % atomic concentration
EDX	Elemental	1–2 µm	Mostly qualitative, or semi-quantitative, requires standard for quantitative analysis	0.05 wt.%
FTIR-ATR	Chemical bonds, interactions in the solid state	0.5–2 µm depending on wavelength of the light	Mostly qualitative, requires calibration with a second technique for quantitative analysis	0.1 wt.%