2024/11/25 by Brennen Clark, George H. Major, Joshua W. Pinder +9 · 1 voice
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Electron and X-Ray Spectroscopy Techniques #X-ray Spectroscopy and Fluorescence Analysis #Machine Learning in Materials Science
paper · doi:10.1116/6.0004093
openalex publication_date 2024/11/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
This study considers how poor x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) peak fitting in the scientific literature is both affected by previous precedent and affects future published work. It focuses on a highly cited paper (the “Subject” paper) from a respected journal that contains incorrect S 2p peak fits. This paper was studied in a genealogical fashion vis-à-vis the XPS peak fitting in its “child,” “parent,” “grandparent,” and “great-grandparent” papers. Interestingly, precedents were not followed to a high degree between parent and child papers. However, in many cases, even when the authors of a study did not follow the incorrect precedent that they cited, they still incorrectly fit their data. Thus, not necessarily for good reasons, the effects of poor XPS peak fits on future generations of papers may be less than some experts had expected or feared. In many cases, older papers appear to contain better XPS peak fitting than newer ones.