Secondary-electron production pathways determined by coincidence electron spectroscopy

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Abstract
The production of secondary electrons by fast (100 keV) electrons is investigated by analyzing the time coincidence between inelastically scattered incident electrons and energy-filtered secondary electrons. Thin conducting and semiconducting films show differences in both the coincidence and generation spectra at energies near the bulk-plasmon excitation, suggesting that plasmon decay does not play a central role in the production of secondary electrons in Si. At primary energy losses greater than 35 eV, the secondary-electron production rate is proportional to the energy deposited by the incident electrons.