Electronic stopping in insulators: a simple model

Abstract

A simple model is presented to explore, review and illustrate basic conceptsrelated to the electronic stopping power in large electronic band gap insulators.A projectile shooting through the solid is described by a local potentialV (r−vt). The flat band limit is assumed for both valence and conduction bands. Theenergy-transfer rate is calculated by solving the time-dependent quantum mechanics for thetimescale of electron excitation near the trajectory, taking the timescale for electronicenergy out-diffusion to be much larger. The threshold effect in the low projectile velocitylimit is characterized.