Angular-resolved elastic peak electron spectroscopy: experiment and Monte Carlo calculations

Elastic peak electron spectroscopy (EPES) is widely applied for determining the inelastic mean free path (IMFP) of electrons, which is of crucial importance for quantitative electron spectroscopy. For this reason, it is highly desirable to verify the reliability of the EPES method for a variety of elements and different experimental geometries. In the present work, elastically backscattered electrons from Au, Ag, Cu, Fe and Si were measured at different experimental geometries (fixed incidence angle along the surface normal and various emission angles) for selected electron energies: 200, 500 and 1000 eV. The experimental angular distributions of elastically backscattered electrons were compared to the Monte Carlo (MC) calculations by the conventional and the reverse simulations. Agreement between the results of conventional, reverse MC calculations and the experimental values of electron backscattering intensity was obtained. Application of the procedure for the surf ace-excitation corrections resulted in better agreement between the simulated and the experimental data. Larger values of deviation were observed for grazing emission angles, indicating inaccuracy of the correcting procedure and the values of the material parameter, independent of the electron energy and the geometry of measurement. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.