XAFS spectroscopy; fundamental principles and data analysis

The physical principles of XAFS spectroscopy are given at a sufficiently basic level to enable scientists working in the field of catalysis to critically evaluate articles dealing with XAFS studies on catalytic materials. The described data-analysis methods provide the basic tools for studying the electronic and structural properties of supported metal, metal–oxide or metal–sulfide catalysts. These methods include (a) fitting in R-space, (b) application of the difference file technique and (c) control of the fit procedure with k1 and k3 weighting with the help of phase- and amplitude-corrected Fourier transforms.