Monte Carlo simulation of full energy spectrum of electrons emitted from silicon in Auger electron spectroscopy

A Monte Carlo simulation including surface excitation, Auger electron- and secondary electron production has been performed to calculate the energy spectrum of electrons emitted from silicon in Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), covering the full energy range from the elastic peak down to the true-secondary-electron peak. The work aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the experimental AES spectrum by integrating the up-to-date knowledge of electron scattering and electronic excitation near the solid surface region. The Monte Carlo simulation model of beam-sample interaction includes the atomic ionization and relaxation for Auger electron production with Casnati's ionization cross section, surface plasmon excitation and bulk plasmon excitation as well as other bulk electronic excitation for inelastic scattering of electrons (including primary electrons, Auger electrons and secondary electrons) through a dielectric functional approach, cascade secondary electron production in electron inelastic scattering events, and electron elastic scattering with use of Mott's cross section. The simulated energy spectrum for Si sample describes very well the experimental AES EN(E) spectrum measured with a cylindrical mirror analyzer for primary energies ranging from 500eV to 3000eV. Surface excitation is found to affect strongly the loss peak shape and the intensities of the elastic peak and Auger peak, and weakly the low energy backscattering background, but it has less effect to high energy backscattering background and the Auger electron peak shape. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.