ASTM E42 Surface Analysis Community Forum

Data in the literature that is poorly acquired, analyzed, or presented can have far reaching effects on the credibility of any technique. Ensuring that the community has the resources available to help the expanding user base will benefit us all!
Join us for a virtual discussion of this surface analysis research community topic and help determine the best solution path that addresses these pressing issues.
Leading experts will lead discussion with participants, laying out the specifics of the problem, explaining how this has progressed and the resources currently available, and then looking forward to how we can improve the resources available and their distribution, with a goal of providing tools to improve research results.

Date: Friday, November 6, 2020,
Time: 12:00 EST (18:00 Europe, 17:00 UK, 09:00 Pacific US)
Duration: 90 minutes
ASTM WebEx Meeting Registration Link: astm.webex.com/astm/j.php
Note: Registration required to receive meeting login

Contributions:

The Problem, as it affects the research community

Matt Linford will describe a multi-institutional and multi-country analysis of XPS reported in three scientific journals which demonstrates significant problems in the analysis of XPS data appearing in the literature. He will describe a quantitative assessment of the problems and report information learned about the most common issues that have been observed.

The Structure of the current toolkit

Mark Engelhard will then provide a short summary of early issues in XPS analysis which motivated the creation of the standards committees ASTM E42 and ISO TC201, and will summarize the types of standards and guides that have been created, and explain some of the inter-relationships among relevant surface analysis standards in E42 and TC201. Recent investigations questioning the adequacy of the reporting of analysis information specified in ISO and ASTM standards will be discussed, as an example of the limitations of the standards and guides in meeting the community data reporting challenges.

The Strategy Going Forward

Don Baer will relay the development of recent guides that are intended to help address the issues and explain what is still in the pipeline. He will explore other tools that might be useful, including the possibility of an XPS reporting guide that could indicate prescribed reporting for levels of confidence and the work towards normalization of these. One objective of this presentation is to seek community input on tools and/or other approaches on how to decrease the incorrect XPS data reports in the literature. Such discussion can guide development of ASTM 42, ISO TC201, AVS Recommended Practices and other activities.

Together, we can build a framework to ensure that resource is available for the research community to help improve the quality of surface analysis result reporting!