Report on the 34th IUVSTA workshop ‘XPS: From Spectra to Results—Towards an Expert System’

A summary is given of the workshop entitled ‘XPS: From Spectra to Results–Towards an Expert System’ that was held in St. Malo, France, on 22–26 April 2002 under the sponsorship of the International Union of Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications (IUVSTA). This workshop was held to develop the structure and initial content of a possible future expert system for XPS. Following three plenary presentations, the participants met in six groups to discuss the following topics: instrument and specimen characterization; experimental objectives; wide‐scan interpretation–trial composition and structure; protocols for narrow scans, instrument set‐up and data acquisition; reduction of narrow‐scan data–chemical‐state and morphology analysis; and reduction of narrow‐scan data–quantification. These discussions led to many recommendations for elements of an expert system for XPS. Some of these recommendations are included in this summary but additional recommendations are included in the reports of the six groups available on the internet ( http://www.iuvsta.org/W34.html ).