INELASTIC-SCATTERING OF POLARIZED ELECTRONS FROM NONMAGNETIC METALS VIA ELECTRON-HOLE EXCITATION

Inelastic scattering of low-energy electrons from nonmagnetic metals d ue to electron-hole pair excitation is treated in a distorted-wave fir st Born approximation including exchange. Screened Coulomb interaction matrix elements between bulk Bloch states and plane waves (including elastic scattering in a simple approximation) are evaluated to yield, for a spin-polarized primary beam, the intensities of electrons scatte red with and without spin flip. Some basic insight is obtained by calc ulations for a homogeneous electron gas. Numerical results for Cu(0 0 1) are found to agree fairly well with experimental data and provide c lear evidence for the importance of elastic scattering processes in el ectron energy loss spectroscopy. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science L td.