Contribution of core states to the emission properties in the particle-induced electron emission of metals

Abstract

Starting from an available microscopic theory of particle-induced electron emission, the role of different excitation mechanisms is investigated. We compare the contributions related to inner shell processes with the contributions that stem from processes related to the system of conduction electrons. Electron and proton impact on aluminum will be considered explicitly. In the case of secondary electron emission, inner shell processes dominate the electron yield in the primary energy range from 1 to 10 keV considered here. In the case of proton impact, the excitation processes with participation of core states can be neglected at low proton energies. The contribution of these processes rises with increasing impact energy and finally dominates the emission phenomenon at very high proton energies.