Energy distribution of primary backscattered electrons in Auger electron spectroscopy

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Abstract
One of the major problems for the quantification of Auger electron spectroscopy is the accurate subtraction of the background under the Auger peaks. Although many studies have been done on the energy distribution of electrons emitted by the true secondary or Auger internal sources, the shape of the primary backscattered electron distribution has yet been completely reproduced only for aluminum with Monte Carlo calculations. We develop a simple transport model where elastic and inelastic scattering are separated, following Tougaard and Sigmund [Phys. Rev. B 25, 4452 (1982)], and which gives the shape of the energy spectrum in the off-peak region with a diffusion approximation. This allows a measurement of the influence of physical parameters, like elastic and inelastic mean free paths and stopping power. Concurrently, we compare calculations with experimental spectra of copper, and propose to fit the primary induced background with an exponential law.

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