Effect of electron band structure on energy distribution of secondaries in silicon

Abstract

A study is made of the cascade process which describes the energy loss and multiplication of secondary electrons and holes in crystalline silicon irradiated by low energy electrons. The pair creation scattering rates are evaluated in framework of statistical model which takes into account the electron band structure of silicon. Kinetic equations for the excited electron and hole energy distributions are solved numerically in the isotropic scattering approximation for some primary energies E p — E F ⩽ ħω pl . The derived energy distribution function permits a smooth interpolation ƒ( E) ∼ ⦶ E - E F ⦶ - s . The calculations result in a weak energy dependence of the mean pair creation energy.