Elastic and Inelastic Low-Energy Electron Diffraction (ELEED, ILEED) from an Al(100) Surface

Abstract

Elastic and inelastic low-energy electron diffraction (ELEED, ILEED) observations have been made on a clean surface of Al (100). Measurements on the (10) and (11) elastic diffraction beams were made using normally incident electrons in the energy range 30≤E≤170 eV. Peaks in the energy loss distribution are seen near 5.5, 10, 15, 26, and 31 eV, the dominant peaks near 10 and 15 eV corresponding to surface and bulk plasmon excitations, respectively. Two types of structure are observed in the inelastic angular profiles: one closely correlated with the structure in the elastic angular profile and the second being substructure corresponding to different ILEED conditions. Intensity profiles (as a function of incident energy) for the (10) and (11) elastic and inelastic diffraction beams have been measured. These profiles also show primary and secondary structure. The experimental results agree with the theoretical predictions of Duke et al.