Rapid and accurate measurement of the thickness of thin films by an X-ray Fluorescence technique using a new background subtraction method

A simple apparatus for measuring the thickness of thin metal films is described in which a new background correction method is applied to the X-ray fluorescence technique. This method provides film thickness measurements that are almost independent of the nature and the thickness of substrates with a low mean atomic number Z. Several test measurements were performed on gold and copper monolayers and on Au/Cu double layers. An improvement in the accuracy and in the minimum detectable limit was found