Ionization and excitation collision processes of electrons in liquid water

Abstract

This paper reports on Monte Carlo simulations of electrons in liquid water using a set of electron collision cross-sections constructed with data published recently. The track history of electrons having initial energy ranged from 1keV to 10keV is investigated looking at the ionization and excitation processes. The results show that the ratio of the ionization and excitation events per track history is unique independent of the initial electron energy above a couple of 100eV and these inelastic processes occur with low energy electrons frequently below 100eV. In particular, the excitation processes are dominated by the electrons below 50eV. Flight distance distributions between the inelastic collisions are also discussed.