{"term":{"id":"09178","title":"Rutherford backscattering spectrometry","longtitle":"IUPAC Gold Book - Rutherford backscattering spectrometry","doi":"10.1351\/goldbook.09178","code":"09178","status":"current","initialism":"<em>initialism<\/em>: RBS","definitions":[{"id":1,"text":"Measurement method to elucidate composition and structure of layers at the surface of a solid material, in which principally monoenergetic, singly charged probe ions scattered from the surface with a Rutherford cross section are detected and recorded as a function of their energy or angle of scattering, or both.","notes":{"1":"RBS is a form of ion beam analysis in which the probe ions, typically \\(\\ce{He+}\\) but sometimes \\(\\ce{H+}\\), have energies in the range \\(\\pu{1 MeV}\\) to \\(\\pu{2 MeV}\\). In its traditional form, a solid-state energy-dispersive detector is used. In the form of high-resolution RBS, the energy can be reduced to \\(\\pu{300 keV}\\) and a high-resolution (ion optical) spectrometer can be used.","2":"By using channelling and aligning the incident-ion beam along a crystal axis, the scattering from the substrate can be suppressed so that enhanced signal quality and visibility are obtained for amorphous overlayers."},"links":[{"term":"Rutherford cross section","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/09381"},{"term":"probe ions","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/09378"}],"sources":["PAC, 2020, 92, 1781. 'Glossary of methods and terms used in surface chemical analysis (IUPAC Recommendations 2020)' on page 1785 (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1515\/pac-2019-0404)"]}],"altoutputs":{"html":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/09178\/html","xml":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/09178\/xml","plain":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/09178\/plain"},"citation":"Citation: 'Rutherford backscattering spectrometry' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351\/goldbook.09178","license":"The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/) for individual terms.","collection":"If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .","disclaimer":"The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.","accessed":"2026-04-20T14:14:21+00:00"}}