Electron inelastic mean free paths in solids: A theoretical approach

Abstract

In the present paper, the inelastic mean free path (IMFP) of incident electrons is calculated as a function of energy for silicon (Si), oxides of silicon (SiO 2 ), SiO, and Al 2 O 3 in bulk form by employing atomic/molecular inelastic cross sections derived by using a semi-empirical quantum mechanical method developed earlier. A general agreement of the present results is found with most of the available data. It is of great importance that we have been able to estimate the minimum IMFP, which corresponds to the peak of inelastic interactions of incident electrons in each solid investigated. New results are presented for SiO, for which no comparison is available. The present work is important in view of the lack of experimental data on the IMFP in solids.

Oxidation of Epitaxial Silicene on Ag(111)

“…The Si coverage rate can be estimated by the XPS signal of the silver substrate. The inelastic mean free path (IMFP) of electrons in Si and SiO 2 is 3.2 and 3.7 nm, respectively . For our samples with ≈0.8 ML of Si on Ag(111), we observe a Ag4s/Si2p intensity ratio of 3/4, a much higher value than in ref.…”

Calculations of electron inelastic mean free paths. XII. Data for 42 inorganic compounds over the 50 eV to 200 keV range with the full Penn algorithm

“…We also report comparisons of our calculated IMFPs for the 42 inorganic compounds with IMFPs calculated by Reich et al Akkerman et al Pandya et al Kwei and Li, Kwei et al Boutboul et al Ashley and Anderson, Dapor and Miotello, and Dapor, and with IMFPs measured by Iakoubovskii et al Egerton, Meltzman et al Gurban et al Pi et al Krawczyk et al Chung et al Wang and Shapiro, McCartney and Gajdardziska‐Josifovska, Lee et al and Bideux et al Zommer et al and Jung et al We also make comparisons between the measured IMFPs and IMFPs from the relativistic TPP‐2M equation.…”

“…Figure shows comparisons of our IMFPs with IMFPs calculated for Al 2 O 3 , GaAs, KBr, KCl, MgO, NaCl, and SiO 2 for energies between 10 eV and 10 keV. We have plotted the IMFP data in the literature, listed above, in Figure without any energy‐scaling corrections.…”

“…The solid lines show our IMFPs that were calculated from optical ELFs with the FPA. The symbols indicate IMFPs calculated by Reich et al (for Al 2 O 3 and SiO 2 ), Akkerman et al (for Al 2 O 3 , KBr, KCl, MgO, and SiO 2 ), Pandya et al (for Al 2 O 3 and SiO 2 ), Kwei and Li (for GaAs), Boutboul et al (for NaCl), Kwei et al (for MgO, glassy SiO 2 and crystalline SiO 2 ), Ashley and Anderson (for SiO 2 ), Dapor and Miotello (for Al 2 O 3 , MgO, and SiO 2 ), Dapor and Miotello (for SiO 2 ), and Dapor (for SiO 2 )…”

Study of inelastic mean free path of metal nanostructures using energy filtered transmission electron microscopy imaging

“…The IMFPs in this low energy range are considerably important or relevant for Auger‐electron spectroscopy (AES) and x‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), to determine the average depth of the surface, and for quantitative surface analysis. In literature, there are also some theoretical models, atomistic models and experimental procedures for calculating IMFP of electrons, but all the processes are very complicated and one need to have prior knowledge about the incident convergence angle, the collection angle, density of the specimen and incident electron energy (Lenz, ; Malis, ; Gries, ; Iakoubovskii et al ., b; Pandya et al ., ). Relativistic factor should also be incorporated in some of these methods.…”