Quasiclassical trajectory calculations of He–LiF (001) diffraction scattering

Abstract

A quasiclassical trajectory method for describing elastic diffraction scattering of an atom from a crystal surface is presented and applied to the He–LiF (001) system. The results for a 20 meV, oriented ⁴He beam are compared with the recently reported quantum ones of Wolken and the semiclassical ones of Doll. The dependence of the specular scattering intensity on the initial beam orientation is calculated and compared with the quantum results of Wolken. It is concluded that the quasiclassical results are semiquantitatively accurate, only slightly less accurate than the uniform semiclassical results (without inclusion of complex‐valued trajectories), but more accurate than the classical and primitive semiclassical results.