A reverse Monte Carlo method for deriving optical constants of solids from reflection electron energy-loss spectroscopy spectra

A reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) method is developed to obtain the energy loss function (ELF) and optical constants from a measured reflection electron energy-loss spectroscopy (REELS) spectrum by an iterative Monte Carlo (MC) simulation procedure. The method combines the simulated annealing method, i.e., a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling of oscillator parameters, surface and bulk excitation weighting factors, and band gap energy, with a conventional MC simulation of electron interaction with solids, which acts as a single step of MCMC sampling in this RMC method. To examine the reliability of this method, we have verified that the output data of the dielectric function are essentially independent of the initial values of the trial parameters, which is a basic property of a MCMC method. The optical constants derived for SiO2 in the energy loss range of 8-90 eV are in good agreement with other available data, and relevant bulk ELFs are checked by oscillator strength-sum and perfect-screening-sum rules. Our results show that the dielectric function can be obtained by the RMC method even with a wide range of initial trial parameters. The RMC method is thus a general and effective method for determining the optical properties of solids from REELS measurements. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.