THE POSTCOLLISION INTERACTION IN THE AUGER PROCESS OF ELECTRON-IMPACTIONIZATION OF ARGON

The spectra of the L(3)M(2,3)M(2,3) Auger process of Ar impacted by el ectrons with energies of 280 - 1000 eV have been obtained, and at low impact-electron energy, the Post-Collision Interaction (PCI) effect ha s been observed. The signal-to-noise ratio usually becomes seriously w orse for low electron-impact energies. This makes the observation of A nger peaks very difficult near the ionization threshold of inner-shell electrons. However, it is necessary to go to the near-threshold impac t energy to be able to see the PCI effect. Therefore, in the present e xperiment, we increased the counting rate by sacrificing the energy re solution of the electron energy analyzer and could go down to a 280-eV impact energy where no PCI broadening effect had been studied previou sly.