Kinetic electron emission from solids induced by slow heavy ions

Abstract

We have measured ion-induced electron yields from clean polycrystalline Au samples bombarded with Xe + in the energy range 0.3–10 keV. This collision system is suitable to study the behaviour of the kinetic electron emission (KEE) at very low energies, since potential electron emission does not contribute to the total yield. We have found an exponential dependence of the electron yield on the ion energy in the energy range 0.3–4 keV, while the shape of the electron energy distributions remains nearly unchanged. The observation of KEE at these low energies suggests that inelastic energy-loss straggling should be included in current theories of KEE by low-velocity ions.