Screening-corrected electron impact total and ionization cross sections for boron trifluoride (BF3) and boron trichloride (BCl3)

Abstract

In this paper, we report modified calculations for total elastic, total ionization and total (complete) cross sections for boron trifluoride (BF3) and boron trichloride (BCl3) upon electron impact at energies from around threshold to 2000 eV. We have proposed a model which allows screening correction due to the overlapping of atoms as seen by incident electrons in a complex molecule. We have employed the well-known spherical complex optical potential (SCOP) formalism to evaluate total elastic and total inelastic cross sections and hence total (complete) cross sections. The ionization cross sections were derived using the complex optical potential–ionization contribution (CSP-ic) method developed by us. The present results are compared with available experimental and other theoretical data wherever available and overall good agreement is observed. The present screening-corrected model shows improvement over the previous method especially at low energies. We also predict total elastic cross sections for these targets using this method.