It is usually assumed that the oxidation state of the small proportion of Mn sometimes present in micas is +2, although there is evidence from electronic spectroscopy (Burns, 1970) for at least the occasional occurrence of Mn(III) in manganophyllite. We describe here X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) measurements on the Mn in a Norwegian lepidolite which was the subject of a concurrent structural study by X-ray photoelectron diffraction (Evans & Raftery, 1982). To establish the Mn oxidation state we have compared the Mn2p core-electron binding energies (BE), the Mn2P3/2-O ls BE differences, and the Mn2p XPS peak profiles from the four common oxides of manganese (MnO, Mn3O4, Mn2O3 and MnO2) with those from the lepidolite. A re-examination of these oxides was undertaken because the agreement between reports in the literature was unsatisfactory, and uncertainty existed concerning the integrity of some of the surfaces previously examined.
New method for the estimation of dissociation energies and its application to the correlation of core-electron binding energies obtained from x-ray photoelectron spectra