Technical Resources
Vocabulary of Definitions for >1000 Terms for Surface Chemical Analysis - ISO
The consistent use of terminology is an important component of accurate and reproducibility reporting of results. To minimize confusion and encourage consistency, a consensus set of terminology for surface analysis has been developed by ISO Technical Committee 201 on Surface Chemical Analysis. This
surface chemical analysis vocabulary provides the definitions for more than 1000 surface chemical analysis terms in a three-part ISO International Standard. These terms can be accessed at no charge through the links included below:
1. ISO18115-1:2023(E) - Surface chemical analysis - Vocabulary - Part 1, General terms and terms used in spectroscopy
- Definitions of the surface analysis methods
- Definitions of terms for surface analysis
- Definitions of terms for multivariate analysis.
2. ISO18115-2:2021(E) - Surface chemical analysis - Vocabulary - Part 2, Terms used in scanning-probe microscopy
- Definitions of the scanned probe microscopy methods
- Acronyms and terms for contact mechanics models
- Terms for scanning probe methods.
3. ISO18115-3:2022(E) - Surface chemical analysis - Vocabulary - Part 3, Terms used in optical interface analysis
- Definitions of the scanned probe microscopy methods
- Acronyms and terms for contact mechanics models
- Terms for scanning probe methods.
These documents, available from ISO (International Standards Organization in Geneva) or your National Standards Body, cover the terms used in surface analysis spectroscopies such as Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and many similar methods as well as in the scanned probe microscopies (SPM) such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM), scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) and many similar methods. New to the 2023 version are terms related to atom probe tomography (APT). Because it is important for analysts, researchers and students to communicate clearly and unambiguously, these definitions are now freely available from the ISO using the above links to the documents or through the ISO portal.
When the documents are addressed through the links a table of contents listing general topic areas will appear to help locate terminology of interest.
The general ISO
Online Browsing Platform is also useful for searching for terms not included in the above standards but that may have been defined in other relevant standards covering the wider spheres of chemistry, optics, etc. It provides all definitions for any given term in ISO standards (click "Terms & Definitions" button) from the different fields so that they may be compared.