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Dependence of calculated electron effective attenuation lengths on transport mean free paths obtained from two atomic potentials
Author(s) -
Powell C. J.,
Jablonski A.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
surface and interface analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-9918
pISSN - 0142-2421
DOI - 10.1002/sia.2460
Subject(s) - attenuation length , electron , atomic physics , photoelectric effect , excited state , attenuation , chemistry , inelastic mean free path , analytical chemistry (journal) , mean free path , physics , optics , quantum mechanics , chromatography
We report changes in electron effective attenuation lengths (EALs) resulting from use of transport mean free paths (TMFPs) obtained from the Dirac–Hartree–Fock (DHF) potential instead of the Thomas–Fermi–Dirac (TFD) potential in an algorithm used in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Electron Effective‐Attenuation‐Length Database (SRD 82). TMFPs from the former potential are believed to be more reliable than those obtained from the latter potential. We investigated changes in the EALs for selected photoelectron and Auger‐electron lines in four elemental solids (Si, Cu, Ag, and W), for Si 2p photoelectrons of varying energy in SiO 2 , and for photoelectrons excited by Al Kα X rays in four candidate gate‐dielectric materials (HfO 2 , ZrO 2 , HfSiO 4 , and ZrSiO 4 ). For each material, we computed the change in the average EAL for a range of overlayer‐film thicknesses from zero to a maximum value corresponding to attenuation of the substrate signal to 10% of its original value. This EAL change was a maximum for electrons emitted normally from the surface and decreased monotonically with increasing emission angle. The maximum EAL change varied between −4.4% and 2.6% for the three groups of materials. We found that the maximum EAL change correlated mainly with the TMFP change. We found that TMFP changes in other solids could generally lead to maximum EAL changes between −2.6% and 1.9% for electron energies between 500 and 2000 eV. For lower energies, the maximum EAL changes could be larger for some solids. Our revised EALs for Si 2p photoelectrons in SiO 2 excited by Mg and Al Kα X rays agree within 0.5% with values reported by Seah and Spencer from a detailed analysis of SiO 2 film‐thickness measurements by XPS and other techniques. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.