Direct and recoil-induced electron emission from ion-bombarded solids

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Abstract
The kinetic emission of secondary electrons from ion-bombarded solid surfaces is split into two contributions, a direct one caused by ionizing collisions between the bombarding ion and target atoms, and an indirect one originating from ionizing collisions undergone by recoil atoms with other target atoms. The direct contribution, which has been treated by several authors in previous studies, shows a behavior that is determined primarily by the electronic stopping power of the bombarding ion, while the indirect contribution is nonproportionally related to the nuclear stopping power. This latter contribution is known to be quite important for heavy-ion bombardment at keV energies, and is shown to be of crucial importance for the understanding of the energy dependence of the electron yield in such cases. The model is shown to give consistent results for copper bombarded with electrons, protons, and noble-gas ions within the accuracy of the treatment.