Contribution of the excitation of conduction band electrons to the kineticelectron emission induced by slow ions in metals

A model is presented to calculate the energy and angle distribution of exci ted conduction band electrons in binary collisions with slowly moving ions. The scattering of the conduction band electrons, which are described withi n the free electron model, off the effective potential created by the proje ctile is studied, taking into account the shift of the Fermi sphere due to the nonzero velocity of the ion. The effective potential is calculated self -consistently within the density functional theory for a static impurity em bedded in an electron gas. Using the excitation rate of conduction band ele ctrons obtained from this approach, the total electron yield of emitted ele ctrons is calculated within a transport equation formalism. The obtained re sults are compared to experimental data. [S0163-1829(98)03247-0].