Chemical effects correlated to nitrogen content of iron nitride films observed in the Fe L-shell X-rays induced by 5-keV electrons

摘要

Iron nitride thin films, produced by reactive magnetron sputtering, were characterized with grazing incidence X-ray diffraction. X-ray reflectometry, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) and conversion electron Moessbauer spectroscopy. Their characteristic L-X-rays spectra, obtained with an electron microprobe analyzer equipped with a wavelength dispersive spectrometer, were compared to the spectrum of an iron standard. The spectra from the nitrides presented several chemical effects: change in the relative peak areas and shifts of the positions of the Lα_(1,2)and the Lβ_1 peaks (chemical shift). The change in relative peak areas, namely the ratio between the Lβ_1 and the Lα_(1,2) peaks, correlated well with the nitrogen content measured with RBS.