Electron transport in solids for quantitative surface analysis

The influence of electron transport on the signal generation process in ele ctron beam techniques is reviewed. A survey of the fundamental physical qua ntities for the electron-solid interaction is presented and sources for the se quantities in the literature as well as semi-empirical formulae are give n. The theoretical approaches used to describe multiple scattering in solid s are outlined. These include the partial intensity approach and the contin uous slowing down approximation to describe multiple energy losses and the transport approximation to tackle multiple deflections. A detailed descript ion of the Monte Carlo technique is presented because this constitutes an e ffective means to study transport processes. The different theoretical appr oaches are illustrated in a survey of applications. These include: quantita tive description of the surface sensitivity in Auger and photoelectron spec troscopy; line shape analysis of electron spectra; extracting information o n the compositional depth profile from the combined energy/angular distribu tion in an electron spectrum; quasi-elastic electron reflection; inelastic electron backscattering; depth distribution of production of x-rays caused by electron bombardment; and the surface sensitivity in total electron yiel d electron spectroscopy. These applications demonstrate that the outlined a pproaches have a broad field of application, not only for electrons with en ergies ranging from thermal to the relativistic energy range, but also for other microbeam analysis techniques. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.