In recent years there has been a large number of articles wrongly attributing, an XPS O1s signal at about 531–532 eV to oxygen vacancies. These studies are based on ex situ measurements of powder materials. By definition, photoelectron spectroscopy relies on measuring the kinetic energy of an electron removed from the core or valence levels of an atom in a compound. Therefore, a photoelectron signal originating from a missing oxygen atom is not possible. The signal attributed to oxygen vacancies is simply that of adventitious hydroxyls of water that are inevitably adsorbed on oxides in ambient conditions. XPS O1s of reduced and non-reduced single crystals and thin films have been studied in details for decades in surface science, some of which are given here. In addition, a binary or mixed metal oxide material or catalyst containing surface oxygen vacancies will be oxidized instantaneously in ambient conditions due to the strong adsorption energy of water (typically about 1 eV) and its high sticking probability (typically equal 1) on defected oxides) and therefore ex-situ measurements of surface oxygen vacancies are not possible.

近年来，有大量文章错误地将大约 531-532 eV 的 XPS O1s 信号归因于氧空位。这些研究基于粉末材料的非原位测量。根据定义，光电子能谱依赖于测量从核心移除的电子的动能或化合物中原子的价能级。因此，源自缺失氧原子的光电子信号是不可能的。归因于氧空位的信号只是水的偶然羟基的信号，这些羟基在环境条件下不可避免地吸附在氧化物上。几十年来，表面科学对还原和非还原单晶和薄膜的 XPS O1 进行了详细研究，此处给出了其中一些。此外，