Experimental investigation about energy balance of electron emission from materials under electron impacts at low energy: application to silver, graphite and SiO₂

Abstract

The energy balance measurement of electron emission at a wall submitted to electron impact at low incident energy is a topic of interest for miscellaneous technological applications. This article points out the experimental protocol, biases corrections and post-process needed to obtain reproducible and quantitative electron emission measurements. The measurements have been performed for incident electrons energy between 5 eV and 105 eV and for three samples materials: silver, graphite and SiO 2. These measurements show that wall absorbs more energy at high incident electrons energy and that graphite absorbs more energy than silver, than SiO 2. Results are presented for mono-energetic incident electron beam and for a Lambertian energy distribution. Analytical laws fitted from experimental results and applicable for modelling issue are proposed for a Lambertian distribution of incident electrons.

A comprehensive analysis of electron emission from a-Si:H/Al2O3 at low energies

“…with the elemental charge e and the respective work functions of the sample and the spectrometer, ϕ sample and ϕ spectrometer . An extensive correction was elaborated for low energy emission spectra measurements by Villemant et al (2017), as the electron energy analyzer is typically calibrated for energies higher than 300 eV. Additionally, geometrical constraints due to the limited field of view of the analyzer were taken into account.…”

“…A setup presented by Belhaj et al (2010), highly suitable for TEY measurements from non-conductive surfaces, was used to determine the previously unknown TEY of a-Si:H and Al 2 O 3 surfaces for energies below 100 eV. In addition, the energy spectra of emitted electrons from the same surfaces for primary electron energies below 200 eV were measured using a setup particularly designed for such purposes by Villemant et al (2017). The importance of this investigation is in the ability to follow the change of the overall spectra (e.g.…”

Pitfalls in Modeling Walls and Neutrals Physics in Gas Discharges Using Parallel Particle-in-Cell Monte Carlo Collision Algorithms

“…A limit of FP's model is its large number of parameters (about 45), which limits in turn its applicability. Nevertheless, while input parameters have thus far only been determined for a few materials (copper and stainless-steel), recent experimental measurements obtained for additional materials [108] may be used to extend FP's model. In addition, parameters for metals may also be derived from a simple and validated analytical model [109].…”

A simple method for energy calibration of keV incident electron beam using a contactless electrostatic voltmeter probe

“…Calibration of the electron beam energy in the range of few eV to hundreds of eV is crucial for many fields of science and technology where the interaction of low energy electrons with surface plays a critical role, such as, in Hall effect thruster technology 1,2 multipactor discharge in microwave devices 3,4 , nuclear fusion 5 and high energy physics 6 . For instance, the control of the electron beam energy with a relative accuracy of 1 eV is required for the evaluation of the multipactor risk in microwave spacecraft components 7,8 .…”