Spectroscopy - Science method

Madison Feehan Please do recommend my message if it was helpful

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) are advanced additive manufacturing technologies used to create three-dimensional objects by selectively melting or sintering layers of material powder. These technologies have applications not only on Earth but also in space. In-space manufacturing using SLM and SLS is gaining attention due to its potential to support long-duration space missions, colonization of other planets, and sustainability in space. Here are some of the technologies being enabled for SLM/SLS manufacturing in-space:

In-space SLM/SLS manufacturing has the potential to revolutionize space exploration by reducing the need to transport all equipment and spare parts from Earth. These technologies are still in development and will continue to evolve as space exploration efforts expand.

When analyzing the chemical makeup of various substances, including biological samples like biofluids, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is a potent analytical method. It can be used to identify and research a number of diseases and medical conditions, including cholestasis, which is characterized by impeded liver bile flow. The liver condition cholestasis happens when the liver's natural flow of bile is obstructed or reduced. Bile is a fluid that the liver produces to help with digestion, particularly of fats in food. The rapidly developing techniques of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy offer numerous advantages for the early diagnosis, grading, and monitoring of a wide range of liver diseases. Several studies have demonstrated that, in contrast to conventional histopathological investigations, infrared imaging holds great promise for understanding disease pathogenesis. Even minute amounts of chemical compounds can be identified thanks to FTIR's high accuracy and impressively detailed spectra. This is due to the fact that, unlike conventional Infrared technologies, the transform process makes the spectrum even more detailed than simply studying individual wavelengths.

It takes knowledge of infrared microspectroscopy, sample preparation, data collection, analysis, and interpretation to use infrared spectroscopy and microspectroscopy for the diagnosis, grading, and monitoring of liver diseases. With that being mentioned, the accuracy of biofluid FTIR spectroscopy in diagnosing patients with cholestasis depends on several factors including proper sample preparation for it is crucial to obtain accurate results. Other than that, although FTIR spectroscopy can identify changes in the biochemical makeup of biofluids, doing so necessitates a thorough knowledge of the pertinent biomarkers which makes the identification of specific biomarkers associated with cholestasis critical for accurate diagnosis. Lastly, depending on the degree and stage of cholestasis, the accuracy of FTIR spectroscopy may change. Compared to early-stage or mild cases, advanced cases may be more accurately detected.

There is still much to learn about the accuracy of using FTIR spectroscopy to diagnose cholestasis, and different studies have used different protocols, tools, and data analysis techniques. When assessing the suitability of FTIR spectroscopy for diagnosing cholestasis in a specific clinical context, it is crucial to take into account the state of the field and consult with medical experts. Before such methods are widely used for medical diagnosis, regulatory approvals, and clinical validation are also required.

References:

Biggers, A. (2018, November 13). Everything You Should Know About Cholestasis: Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/cholestasis

On A Whole New Wavelength: What Is FTIR And How Does It Work?. (n.d.). https://www.portableas.com/news/ftir-and-how-it-works/#:~:text=FTIR%20is%20highly%20accurate%20and,than%20simply%20studying%20individual%20wavelengths.

Spragg, R.A. (1999). IR Spectrometers: Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/fourier-transform-infrared-spectrometer

No need to have the i-E curve. You can check the linearity by just varying the amplitude of your perturbation signal; you are in the linear domain if the impedance is independant of the amplitude.

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is a powerful analytical technique that can potentially be used to detect microplastics in water. Here's how it could be applied for this purpose:

1. Principle of LIBS:LIBS involves focusing a high-energy laser pulse onto a sample, which creates a microplasma or "spark" on the surface of the material. This microplasma emits light at characteristic wavelengths when the elements in the sample are vaporized and excited. By analyzing the emitted light, you can identify the elemental composition of the material.

2. Sample Preparation:For microplastics detection in water using LIBS, you would need to concentrate and collect the microplastic particles from the water sample. Filtration or centrifugation can be used to separate the microplastics from the water matrix.

3. Laser Interaction:Once the microplastic particles are collected, they can be placed on a sample holder. The high-energy laser pulse is focused on the surface of the microplastic, creating a microplasma. The vaporized material emits characteristic spectral lines that can be analyzed.

4. Spectral Analysis:The emitted light is collected and analyzed using a spectrometer. Each type of plastic can have specific elemental signatures due to the additives, pigments, or fillers used during manufacturing. These elemental signatures can be used to identify the type of plastic present in the sample.

5. Calibration and Identification:To detect microplastics, you would need to develop a calibration curve using known samples of different plastic types. By comparing the spectral lines of your unknown sample with the calibration curve, you can identify the type of plastic present.

6. Challenges and Considerations:Using LIBS for microplastics detection in water comes with challenges:

7. Data Analysis:After analyzing the emitted light, you'll need to interpret the spectra and use the calibration curve to determine the type of microplastic present in the sample.

LIBS has the potential to provide rapid, non-destructive, and element-specific analysis, which makes it an attractive option for microplastics detection. However, its successful application depends on optimizing the experimental setup, sample preparation, calibration, and data analysis to achieve accurate and reliable results. Given the complexity of the technique, collaboration with experts in LIBS and microplastics research would be beneficial. Alwielland Q. Bello

If your sample allows for XPS, that would be the most straightforward method. Here is an analysis guide with references:

If you don't have XPS available or the analysis is hindered by differential charing effects, EPR or Mößbauer spectroscopy would also be options.

Calculated from what? Show us the graphical presentation.

Lahraseb Khan Thank you

Down below is the python code for the scheme above.

import math

def calculate_actual_reflectance(absolute_reflectance):

fraction = absolute_reflectance / 100.0

if fraction > 1:

actual_reflectance = 100

else:

actual_reflectance = absolute_reflectance * (1 - math.sqrt(1 - fraction))

return actual_reflectance

# Example usage:

absolute_reflectance = 250

actual_reflectance = calculate_actual_reflectance(absolute_reflectance)

print(actual_reflectance)

Another way to state the method is: Measure the rate of the reaction by finding the slope during the initial, linear part of the absorbance versus time plot. To do this, you must measure the absorbance at several times during the reaction.

Convert absorbance to concentration using the Beer-Lambert Law, as stated by Jürgen Weippert .

This means that no enough air or gas reachs the system. This normally caused by air compressor is not working or gas regulator is not will adjusted or selinoid valve problem.

Yes, that's called a spectroscopic camera َ

May be simple problem: A = 1 - T - R

This equation is used in many papers.

example "The experimental results are shown in Fig. 1a,

b, respectively. From the R and T data, it is straightforward to obtain the absorption as A = 1 − R − T , which is of practical interest since it directly affects the optical efficiency."

Please check this reference

Https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2020.136109

You will need to implement a kind of lock-in detection to remove the background. One possibility would be to use the same chopping also at the spectrometer side. If you acquire data with and without this additional chopping, a weighted difference should remove the background and provide the desired data.

The abovementioned method will work only if the light intensities are stable over the measurement time. A real lock-in detection, that does not have this drawback, would require another detector than the one installed in the spectrometer USB4000.

Yes, at least in the gas phase rotational spectroscopy in combination with high-level structure calculations is one of the most powerful structure determination tools.

What kind of interaction are you looking for? You probably will have some complex formation between nitrogen atoms of the DNA and the Nickel atoms which may replace Chloride as the ligand.

The Nickel UV-Vis is sensitive towards the coordination geometry, circular dichroism may add some chirality information to that. If that's what you're looking for, check out "Tanabe-Sugano diagrams" and associated literature.

If you want to see influences on bond strengths, infrared spectroscopy might be the tool of choice. There is also IR-CD spectroscopy, but I have never read into it.

If your Ni-DNA complex is paramagnetic, EPR spectroscopy would be an option, while if it's diamagnetic, you can do ⁶¹Ni NMR.

I think it possible to use only one prizm (grating double pass scheme): you can to decrease twice the dispertion

Dear Muhammad Shahbaz

Ferrites are materials that contain iron oxide and other metal oxides. The wide absorbance peaks observed in UV-vis spectroscopy of ferrites can be attributed to a number of factors:

Overall, the wide absorbance peaks observed in UV-vis spectroscopy of ferrites can be attributed to a combination of factors related to the crystal structure, electronic structure, particle size, and stoichiometry of the material.

thank you , will read that

Hi, Firas Khalid!

You can find a helpfull database at https://www.nist.gov/pml/atomic-spectra-database

At NIST's database, it is published the parameters which permits you to calculate Te for Boltzmann or Saha-Boltzmann (more than one species) for selected emitted lines in your spectra. Good luck!

I recommend the freeware EIS Spectrum Analyzer (http://www.abc.chemistry.bsu.by/vi/analyser/). It's well designed, gives you a choice of 4 different fitting algorithms, and all are transparent so you're not tied to a proprietary software for the rest of your project. You might need to convert the data into text files with compatible columns, but in my opinion it's worth the extra step.

Hi Luke Peters.. Thank you so much for the reply.. Good to hear that you belong to THz Imaging domain..

I think you will find that polyethylene is transparent (certainly looks that way to me). So visible will not work, but it may well absorb in the short wavelength UV (which cause degradation).

Mohammad Alzeyadi thank you very much for your detailed explanation

Are you talking about remote measurement or you can deploy your sensor in medium?

Dear Yongjin Kim ,

Although absorption and excitation spectra look (in general) quite similar they are fundamentally different terms, see for a pretty good explanation here: https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-excitation-and-vs-absorption/

See also https://www.edinst.com/blog/what-are-absorption-excitation-and-emission-spectra/

So, in ‘mechanistic terms’ different the absorption and excitation spectra show high resemblance in most cases, but there are examples where they differ (somewhat):

On, C., Tanyi, E. K., Harrison, E., & Noginov, M. A. (2017). Effect of molecular concentration on spectroscopic properties of poly (methyl methacrylate) thin films doped with rhodamine 6G dye. Optical Materials Express, 7(12), 4286-4295.

So, back to your question: you can get a pretty good idea about the excitation spectrum but strictly speaking you can only obtain an excitation spectrum by using fluorescence spectroscopy.

Best regards.

Well, I can't help much with the web site part, but if you want I could assemble a searchable database from your spectra, to be offered among the free databases here: https://www.effemm2.de/spectragryph/down_databases.html

Dear Dr. Abdullah Abdulkarim ,

as I already answered a similar question, I suggest you to have a look at the following, interesting and useful documents:

-Electrochemical Impedance Techniques Potentiostatic EIS by GAMRY Instruments

Available at: https://www.gamry.com/application-notes/EIS/potentiostatic-eis-tutorial/

-Basics of Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy by GAMRY Instruments

Available at: https://www.gamry.com/application-notes/EIS/basics-of-electrochemical-impedance-spectroscopy/

- Webinar Basics of Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) by GAMRY Instruments

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM0o1BbbXy8

- What is Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS)? By BioLogic

Available at: https://www.biologic.net/topics/what-is-eis/

- Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) by Palmsens

Available at: https://www.palmsens.com/knowledgebase-article/electrochemical-impedance-spectroscopy-eis/

- Electrochemcal Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) Basics by PINEresearch

Available at: https://pineresearch.com/shop/kb/theory/eis-theory/eis-basics/

- Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy by LibreTexts ENGINEERING

Available at: https://eng.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Materials_Science/Supplemental_Modules_(Materials_Science)/Insulators/Electrochemical_Impedance_Spectroscopy

Enjoy reading and my best regards, Pierluigi Traverso.

The KnowItAll Academic edition is no longer available. The bet resources are to go back to the literature. These are the bet resources for interpretation. The Nakamoto book is particularly good for inorganics. You can find more information on the Coblentz website. www.coblentz.org

•Larkin, P.J. Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy. Principles and Spectral Interpretation, second edition; Elsevier: Cambridge MA, 2018

•Mayo, W.M., Miller, F.A., Hannah, R.W. Course Notes on the Interpretation of Infrared and Raman Spectra: Deducing Structures of Complex Molecules, first edition; John Wiley & Sons: New York, 2004

•Nakamoto, K. Infrared and Raman Spectra of Inorganic and Coordination Compounds, Part A: Theory and Applications in Inorganic Chemistry, Part B: Applications in Coordination, Organometallic, and Bioinorganic Chemistry, fifth edition;John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1997

•Socrates, G. Infrared Characteristic Group Frequencies, second edition;John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1994

•Lin-Vien, D.; Colthup, N.B.; Fateley, W.G.; Grasselli, J.G. Infrared and Raman Characteristic Frequencies of Organic Molecules, Academic Press: San Diego, 1991

•Colthup, N.B.; Daly, L.H.; Wiberley, S.E. Introduction to Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy, third edition; Academic Press: New York, 1990

•Bellamy, L.J.; The Infrared Spectra of Complex Molecules, Vol 1, third edition; Chapman and Hall: New York, 1975

The time domain quantification of metabolite signals was conducted using AMARES algorithm with custom prior knowledge.Metabolite concentrations were reported for tCr (creatine plus phosphocreatine), NAA (N-acetyl-aspartate), tCho (phosphocholine and glycerophosphocholine), Ins (myoinositol) and Glx (glutamate and glutamine). The AMARES prior knowledge model consisted of peaks for NAA, choline (Cho), creatine (Cr), glutamate + glutamine (Glx) and myoinositol (Ins). The amplitudes of NAA, Cho, Cr, Glx, and Ins peak were estimated by the algorithm. The relative phases of NAA, Cho, Cr, Glx, and Ins peak were fixed at 0. The linewidth of NAA was estimated by the algorithm, and the linewidths of the remaining peaks were set to be equal to that of NAA. The frequencies of NAA, Cho, Cr, Glx, and Ins peak were estimated by AMARES. All peak shapes were fixed at Lorentzian.

You could ask at the Indus facility (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_2), even if they don't have beamtime for you, they probably know people with smaller-scaled setups which would probably suffice for you.

TTA emission will have a quadratic dependence on incident light intensity, where other (1 photon) types of emission will have a linear dependence.

bulk and grain boundaries contributions may collapse . Your semi-circles atre distorted.

There are and have been many appraoches,

such as:

- Comparison of the spectra of different materials, which are different in structure, but share only one group. Whatever is the same in each spectrum, belongs likely to the strucutre present in each sample.

- Comparison with other techniques, such as Raman spectroscopy, maybe neutron scattering (Atleast for phonons in crystals this yields results)

- Comparison with theoretical predictions (e.g. nowadays by DFT or even semi-empirical calculations by hand in the early days). There are whole books with tables of calculated/estimated frequencies of molecular groups.

- Polarisation/Symmetry behavior of specific - although this more applies to crystals/samples with defined orientations.

And then it is a puzzle to solve. Making experiments/hypothesis and testing until a stable picture emerges.

Best,

Michael

Thank you for your suggestions.

This sample is made of steel, which if cut each layer into a new surface for measurements up to 1 mm, it will certainly affect the microstructure due to heat and cutting force.

I thought of taking a side view of the sample surface. Then shoot a beam at the surface and shift the incident beam for each layer in micrometer steps. I don't know yet if these incident rays are smaller in diameter or equal to a few micrometers in size?

What makes you think so? The signature lines of a methylene groups are 1470, 2850 and 2925cm^-1. All these areas are covered here:

Moisture meter tests: This uses a specialized device called a moisture meter to determine the (%MC ) percentage moisture content of the material.

The pin meters use electrical resistance to measure the presence of water.

The less resistance there is to the electrical current, the more moisture there is in the plant matter.

Dear Dr. Stanislav Levun ,

I am, in general, in agreement with what was said by the colleagues who preceded me.

I would just like to point out that the best equivalent circuit is not said to be the one that thickens neglect with the experimental curve but the one that best represents the "real" system we are studying.

That is, to each component of the equivalent circuit we must be able to provide an explanation regarding its presence.

My best regards, Pierluigi Traverso.

As long as measurement are not in the UV (<350 nm), NMP (N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone) can be a useful solvent for optical absorption spectroscopy. We have used it with good results as a solvent for certain dyes and nanoparticles.

For emission studies, as for any solvent, always check the solvent emission background under the specific excitation and measurement conditions that you will use. Solvents may contain impurities depending on age, supplier, and history of the particular bottle used.

I recall that at a certain time, NMP was promoted as an alternative to its cousin DMF, but both are now considered harmful chemicals. Like DMF, NMP may contain traces of amines as impurities.

According to an article in Chemical&Engineering News, an alternative to NMP and DMF is being proposed: dihydrolevoglucosenone (commercial name "Cyrene"). I wonder if anyone has experience with this solvent for optical spectroscopy.

Good day! Here I found brief and complex explanation on reflectance and transmittance phenomenons:

The hamiltonian of such a system, usually, has the form H=H_S+H_{SR}+H_R, H_S is the hamiltonian of an isolated molecule, H_R is the hamiltonian of the radiation field, H_{SR}=\Sum_k (S^{+}+S)(a^{+}_k+a_k), here S operators refers to the system and a_k operators refers to the k-th mode of the radiation field. To see if there is enegry transition between eigenstates |x> and |y> of H_S, you should compute <y|H_{SR}|x>. If it is zero, there is no transition of such a type between |x> and |y>.

But you should take into account that there are more ways of an molecule to interract with the environment, for example dephasing H_{SR}=\Sum_k S^{+}S(a^{+}_k+a_k)

Yes, You should choose a line having no overlapping with other lines. In the case of overlapping results may differ.

I should think ICP would do the job, provided you can digest your particles. Would probably work using aqua regia or just HNO3 with some HCl added.

You can get relevant information here, to start with : https://www.inorganicventures.com/periodic-table

Dear Sumit, thank you for a nice question! I suspect that the difference between 2 notations, that the first one means the energy level or shell, so, for example, K shell can consist of 2 electrons, L 8 electrons ( L1 2, L2 2 and L3 4 anD overall it’s 8)and so on, the formula is 2n^2, so you see that when we talk about about shell one talks about several electrons, for the second notations you talk always about one electron on some level, this means that spin projection can be only plus minus 0.5, therefore only d 3/2 and 3/2 exist , for 0.5 one would need and electron with spin projection 3/2, which doesn’t exist, however for shell notations it’s fine, one just takes 3 electrons. For XPS it’s more convenient to talk about one electron notation because only one electron is involved and kicked out, however for Auger effect it’s always 2 of them, hope that my answer helps you.

so for example , CPT resonance is a subnatural linewidth, is it?

There is lots of research on the topic, and bench instruments usually work well. Obviously, a calibration with a large number of samples and adequate primary analytical methods is required.

I recommend Andrew Boothroyds new book on Neutron Scattering :-)

For data evaluation you are welcome to join the McPhase community www.mcphase.de

with best regards MR

Dear Joseph Dubrovkin ,

Though it may be a bit outdated it is one of the rare publications that studied exactly what you are looking for: Hubbard, D.E. (2011), "Chemistry book reviews: their value, sources, and number", Collection Building, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 172-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/01604951111181146 In Table II (see enclosed file) you see excellent titles like Journal of the American Chemical Society and Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Obviously not sure how, more than 10 years later, the ‘landscape’ of journals is, but I found a nice example in Frontiers of Chemistry (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2017.00065/full ). See for more info regarding book reviews (and especially the reply by Wolfgang R. Dick ) the following question here on RG https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_a_book_review_considered_a_publication

Best regards.

PS. Be careful with the suggestions like JETIR and IOSR. There are predatory journals out there nowadays. See for example:

Glycine is not fluorescent in the UV-VIS range. It lacks a chromophore.

Ah, yes. I just have never seen it as an acronym before.

Epsilon is the extinction coefficient in Beer's Law, I presume. If you have the log of epsilon, take the antilog to get epsilon. Then use Beer's Law, the concentration of the solution and the path-length to calculate the absorbance:

Absorbance = epsilon x path-length x concentration

Your question is too general. The detection limit depends on on method, in flame AAS on oxidant (air/ nitrous oxide), or graphite furnace method. For the elements like Zn and Cd with graphite furnace method thous limits you mentioned can be easily reached. In fact, especially in case of Zn, the detection limit is so low that contamination even in laboratory environment can be a real risk.

Greetings, Pentti Minkkinen

Difficult to orient you towards a specific determination method, without knowledge of the expected Copper concentration or the solubility of the Copper ions from your protein complex (easy to release or not ?).

Off the top of my head and without having to turn to mineralization followed by AA or ICP (which would be ideal) :

Dear Cynthia Bessem Nkemeto ,

The earlier mentioned 222 nm find its origin in the following source: The ellipticity at 222 nm has been used as a rough measure for the relative helicity, for which q222=36 300 deg.cm2/dmol was taken as 100% a-helix (Hodges et al., 1988).

Hodges, R. S., Semchuk, P. D., Taneja, A. K., Kay, C. M., Parker, J. M., & Mant, C. T. (1988). Protein design using model synthetic peptides. Peptide Research, 1(1), 19-30.

You can find the paper here:

and in Figure (they actually used 220 nm) examples of thermal melting profiles).

Best regards.

Dear Divyanshu Aggarwal,

in your question you are looking for the answer for a laser wavelength for FTIR spectroscopy, but the laser wavelength does not play a decisive role in FTIR, since here the laser only serves as a reference for the mirror position of the interferometer. Your question probably refers to Raman spectroscopy.

Here, the wavelength is definitely decisive. The smaller the wavelength of the laser, the more fluorescens appear in the spectrum.

I only have experience with laser wavelengths of 1064 nm and 785 nm. With your choices, I would first test the 785nm laser. I assume that you will get an evaluable spectrum with it.

Many greetings and good luck with your work

Joachim Horst

Dear Nikhil Gaur ,

in addition to the aspects mentioned by Jürgen Weippert ,

in the case of emission based spectroscopy you need to have access to the sample only from one side.

In absorption (transmission) based spectroscopy you need access to two opposite lying sides of the sample, often in combination with additional windows of appropriate material.

Best regards

G.M.

Hi Bibek, The bandwidth is determined by many factors. It depends strongly on the intrinsic material properties. For example, Au always has broader bands than Ag due to the interband transitions. Kreibig and Vollmer is a good book on this.

Nanoparticle size distribution has only a weak effect:

Dear Efi ,

can you show some graphs from EIS ?

:-) You're welcome, Phuoc-Tan Diep ! I’m glad I could help.

Can you please show what "energy data" you are referring to?

Thank you for your scientific efforts and we will try to focus on the privacy of this source

师弟 这是我们组研发的 你师兄我就在纳米中心联培过 你要测找我

Dear Ashar Ahmad

You can measure the exchangeable cations using Ammonium Molebdate solution under spectroscopy.

diffraction - some phenomena at costant freqyency

spectroscopy - as result of frequency variation

Let us set terms straight first. The resolution is a dimensionless quantity, calculated by nu/Dnu (nu being the absolute frequency, not the Raman shift), therefore 10cm^-1 is not a suitable resolution indication.

I assume you are referring to the FWHM which you could use as FWHM=Dnu in the resolution calculation. If you only want to identify species and not make shift analyses, an FWHM of 14cm^-1 is sufficient. If you want to perform analyses based on peak shifts, e.g. for stress checks, any accuracy you can gain at an acceptable price is welcome.

Dear Thomas Farrow ,

If you a an electrochemical cell with two electrodes the you can bias it in a specific DC operating point and then you can measure its vector impedance using RLC meter. You need only to access the biased cell through a coupling capacitor.

While you need also tp prevent the flow the AC current from flowing in the biasing source by connecting a high inductance in series with it.

In this way you prevent the AC from entering the DC source and also you prevent the DC current from entering in the RLC meter.

This is the measuring circuit for the impedance of the cell.

Then you set the RLC meter in the right operating mode here the series R-C mode.

There are two papers which can help you much to perform such measurements:

You can measure the electrodes in the same way you measure the cells except you access between the working electrode and the reference electrode.

Best wishes

It is not an easy-to-answer question. In spite of all advances in the current characterization techniques, in particular for elemental identification and quantification, new materials with complex structure/phases as well as the level of accuracy still challenge our results.

Indeed, ToF-SIMS is currently by far a powerful technique for elemental identification, but it has several (perhaps many) challenges/limits for quantification. Ion beam based analysis (IBA) methods like RBS, ERDA, NRA, and PIXE are also considered as standard-free powerful tools, but depending on materials, there may face difficulties. I work with IBA methods and XPS, but never recommend XPS for quantification due to several reasons.

You may find the following paper as a good practice proving that depending on how deep you look at the question, elemental identification/quantification can be challenging. In this paper, the compositions of different diboride thin films using EDX, XPS, ToF-ERDA, RBS, and NRA are studied.

Tushar Kumar

I suggest reading these papers:

1. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1515573/FULLTEXT01.pdf

2.

See attached article