Calculations of electron inelastic mean free paths. XII. Data for 42 inorganic compounds over the 50 eV to 200 keV range with the full Penn algorithm

Published

December 27, 2018

Author(s)

Cedric J. Powell, H Shinotsuka, Shigeo Tanuma, David R. Penn

Abstract

We have calculated inelastic mean free paths (IMFPs) for 42 inorganic compounds (AgBr, AgCl, AgI, Al2O3, AlAs, AlN, AlSb, cubic BN, hexagonal BN, CdS, CdSe, CdTe, GaAs, GaN, GaP, GaSb, GaSe, InAs, InP, InSb, KBr, KCl, MgF2, MgO, NaCl, NbC0.712, NbC0.844, NbC0.93, PbS, PbSe, PbTe, SiC, SiO2, SnTe, TiC0.7, TiC0.95, VC0.76, VC0.86, Y3Al5O12, ZnS, ZnSe, and ZnTe) for electron energies from 50 eV to 200 keV. These calculations were made with energy-loss functions (ELFs) obtained from measured optical constants for 15 compounds while calculated ELFs were utilized for the remaining 27 compounds. Checks with ELF sum rules showed that the calculated ELFs were superior to measured ELFs that we had used previously. Our calculated IMFPs could be fitted to a modified form of the relativistic Bethe equation for inelastic scattering of electrons in matter for energies from 50 eV to 200 keV. The average root-mean-square (RMS) deviation in these fits was 0.60 %. The IMFPs were also compared with a relativistic version of our predictive Tanuma-Powell-Penn (TPP-2M) equation. The average RMS deviation in these comparisons was 10.7 % for energies between 50 eV and 200 keV. This average RMS deviation is almost the same as that found in a similar comparison for a group of 41 elemental solids (11.9 %) although relatively large deviations were found for cubic BN (66.1 %) and hexagonal BN (34.7 %). If these two compounds are excluded in the comparisons, the average RMS deviation becomes 8.7 %. We found generally satisfactory agreement between our calculated IMFPs and values from other calculations and from experiments.

Citation

Surface and Interface Analysis

Volume

51

Issue

4

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1002/sia.6598

Keywords

electron, inelastic mean free paths, inorganic compounds, surface analysis

Citation

Powell, C. , Shinotsuka, H. , Tanuma, S. and Penn, D. (2018), Calculations of electron inelastic mean free paths. XII. Data for 42 inorganic compounds over the 50 eV to 200 keV range with the full Penn algorithm, Surface and Interface Analysis, [online], https://doi.org/10.1002/sia.6598 (Accessed October 12, 2024)