Effects of secondary electron scattering on secondary emission yield curves

Abstract

The power‐law and constant‐loss theories of secondary electron emission have been modified to include the effects of secondary scattering within the solid. For power‐law exponent values of 1.35, 1.66, and 2.00, the scattering effects reduced penetration depths at maximum yield by almost a factor of 2 and decreased the maximum yields by about 70% in each case. Reduced yield curves were also computed for the different cases and the results indicate that scattering has only a small effect on the shape of the curves. Where reduced yield curves are involved, it may be concluded that the simpler theories could be sufficiently accurate in many cases. It is also shown that the exponent value of 1.35 provides reasonable agreement with experiment for lower primary energies, while 1.66 is more suitable at higher energies, in general accord with the energy ranges employed in the electron transmission measurements from which the above exponent values were originally determined.