Monte Carlo simulation of secondary electron emission from the insulator SiO2

Low energy electron scattering and transport in the dielectric and insulating material silicon dioxide is simulated by a Monte Carlo program based on the electron interaction with polar-optical and acoustic phonons, intervalley and interband scattering as well as impact ionization. These scattering processes for higher electron energies are considered and proved in a one-, three-, or five-band structure of amorphous SiO2. The acoustic screening and the impact ionization as the most elastic and the most inelastic processes, respectively, have been optimized by 'backscattering-versus-range' calculations in connection with respective experimental data. We may show that the one-band model is already sufficient for description of the ballistic electron scattering in amorphous SiO2. Finally the simulation is applied to secondary electron (SE) generation, relaxation and SE emission with trajectories, field-dependent escape depths, energy distributions and the SE yield. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.