Elastic and inelastic mean-free-path determination in solid xenon from electron transmission experiments

Abstract

Electron transmission experiments in the (0-20)-eV energy range have been performed on Xe films (0-3000 \AA{}) deposited at various temperatures on different metal substrates [Nb,Pt,W(100)]. A theoretical model is used to extract from these experiments the elastic and inelastic mean free paths in the (0-8.5)-eV energy region. Some structures in the transmitted current arise from inelastic processes and yield information on electronic excitations (excitons and electron-hole-pair creation) and the energy of the bottom of the conduction band. Other structures present in the elastic mean free path appear to be caused by structural effects and thermal disorder of the deposited film.