Application of x-ray photoemission electron microscopy developed at SPring-8 BL15XU

We have been developing x-ray photoemission electron microscopy (XPEEM) designed for measurement with both soft x-rays and hard x-rays at SPring-8 beamline BL15XU, in order to realize two-dimensional chemical analysis and to establish a technique for the micro-area x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) for practical materials. In this work, surface images of SbTe amorphous/crystalline patterned film, used as the recording layer for the digital versatile disc—rewritable (DVD + RW), were observed by XPEEM. We have also demonstrated the micro-area x-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) of Sb LIII spectra in a 200 × 200 nm2 area by means of XPEEM, and successfully distinguished the spectrum of the amorphous bit region from that of the crystalline region. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.