XPS should be suited well - however the differentiation of the deposited carbon and carbon contaminations is presumably difficult!

But you will encounter these problems in any case, because when working with vacuum systems, you always have to deal with those contaminants.

Good luck in any case, Dirk

Thank you for the reply. Yes, that is a problem when using XPS to determine the carbon. Besides, I wish to quantify the carbon in terms of mass, like ug/cm2. XPS usually give the ratios of the surface elements, could these ratios be converted into mass in XPS analysis?

There is a chance to calculate the mass coverage, if you assume that you have an adsorbate. Then each atom counts, and using the weight of a carbon you may estimate the total mass coverage (see enclosed paper). But as soon as you have a film, this will not work properly, because in that case density comes into play, and you do not know the density in general.

Another way to quantify carbon may be Low Energy Ion Spectroscopy (ISS) - but still the same problems compared to XPS with contaminations! In the enclosed paper, we were unable to detect carbon.

Dirk

Raman spectroscopy can also be useful : Scharf, T.W., Singer, I.L.

Thickness of diamond-like carbon coatings quantified with Raman spectroscopy

(2003) Thin Solid Films, 440 (1-2), pp. 138-144

XPS will be suitable, but you carbon film thickness needs to be less than 10 -15 nm to look at the relative amount of carbon to copper (assuming you have a cohesive film instead of islands)

All spectroscopies will give relative amounts. You will have to calibrate or apply a theoretical coverage model to get absolute amounts.

Depending on the preparation method, I might suggest to use a quartz crystal microbalance during the deposition process.

Depending on your requirements you can potentially do a measurement of carbon through the formation and measurement of a gaseous product. For example methanation of surface carbon is possible via reaction with H2. For an example see Journal of Catalysis, 43, 363-366 (1976) and similar articles.