Ionization cross sections of the L subshells of Au by 50 to 100 keV electron impact

Abstract

We have measured the Lα, Lβ, , , L, and Lη x-ray production cross sections of Au by 50–100 keV electron impact. From this experimental information we derived the L1, L2 and L3 subshell ionization cross sections with a novel analysis procedure that is based on an overdetermined system of equations and achieve the estimates by the least-squares method. The uncertainties in the atomic relaxation parameters needed to transform the x-ray intensities to ionization cross sections impose a lower limit to the relative standard deviations of the L subshell ionization cross sections, which is found to be 5–10% depending on the selected set of relaxation parameters. Our experimental results are in reasonable accord with most of the measurements carried out by other authors, and they agree with the predictions of the semi-relativistic distorted-wave Born approximation.