Low energy Auger electron spectroscopy of vanadium nitrides

The low energy (20–40 eV) region of the Auger spectrum of vanadium nitrides has been studied in order to extend and complement earlier investigations of titanium nitride. The method of using the high-energy spectrum as an internal calibration has also been used in this work which is made easier by the absence of peak overlap between the nitrogen and metal peaks. The background subtraction and peak deconvolution techniques have been considerably …