Abstract
Interplay between desorption, ordinary and electrical field assisted diffusion processes of alkali ions during Auger electron spectroscopy of dielectric solids has been quantitatively discussed. It is shown that the alkali Auger signal decay is mainly connected to alkali ion migration towards the interior of the electron irradiated-glasses. Comparison between many theoretical and experimental results clearly supports this physical idea which contrasts the point of view of a recently published work.