Before 1960, virtually all measurements of photoelectron kinetic energies were for electrons emitted from metals and other solid surfaces. In about 1956, Kai Siegbahn developed X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) for surface chemical analysis. This method uses x-ray sources to study energy levels of atomic core electrons, and at the time had an energy resolution of about 1 eV (electronvolt).
The ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) was pioneered by Feodor I. Vilesov, a physicist at St. Petersburg (Leningrad) State University in Russia (USSR) in 1961 to study the photoelectron spectra of free molecules in the gas phase. The early experiments used monochromatized radiation from a hydrogen discharge and a retarding potential analyzer to measure the photoelectron energies.
The PES was further developed by David W. Turner, a physical chemist at Imperial College in London and then at Oxford University, in a series of publications from 1962 to 1967. As a photon source, he used a helium discharge lamp which emits a wavelength of 58.4 nm (corresponding to an energy of 21.2 eV) in the vacuum ultraviolet region. With this source, Turner's group obtained an energy resolution of 0.02 eV. Turner referred to the method as "molecular photoelectron spectroscopy", now usually "ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy" or UPS. As compared to XPS, UPS is limited to energy levels of valence electrons, but measures them more accurately. After 1967, commercial UPS spectrometers became available. One of the latest commercial devices was the Perkin Elmer PS18. For the last twenty years, the systems have been homemade. One of the latest in progress - Phoenix II - is that of the laboratory of Pau, IPREM developed by Dr. Jean-Marc Sotiropoulos.