Influence of heterogeneous surface morphology on analytical signal formation in total reflection x-ray fluorescence analysis

The fundamentals of the influence of heterogeneous surface morphology on the analytical signal formation in total reflection x-ray fluorescence (TXRF) analysis were developed. The dependence of x-ray fluorescence line intensity on mechanisms of new phase nucleation and growth on a foreign low-density substrate (reflector) was considered theoretically. The approaches were tested during the study of surfaces of disc glass-ceramic carbon electrodes electrochemically modified by metal deposition and co-deposition from aqueous solutions. It was shown that TXRF could be effectively applied for the identification of nucleation and growth mechanisms of metal and alloy thin films. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.