Interference effects in Auger electron spectroscopy

Abstract
We compare the experimental and theoretical shape and strength of the plasmon gain peak in Auger spectra of Al, Mg, and Na and find good agreement. We show that interference effects between different gain events and between gain and no-gain events are important for the shape of the plasmon gain peak. Because of interference effects the probability for gain events does not decay in a simple exponential way. This leads to a broadening of the gain peak which cannot be described as a Lorentzian convolution.