The X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (XPS) was custom-built to ESA specifications by VG Scienta in the UK and delivered to the Materials and Electrical Components Laboratories at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
The XPS, as a surface science tool, will allow engineers to analyse test material surface structure and composition to a depth of just two to four nanometres – a nanometre being a billionth of a metre, or, typically, a few dozen individual atoms.