Emitted electrons inelastic scattering

Electrons inelastically scattered within the excitation volume of a specimen deposit some energy in many atoms. In order to return to ground state, the atom releases a distinct quantum of energy. If the excited atom ejects an iimer-shell electron, an outer-shell electron fills that vacancy and emits an X-ray having energy equal to the difference between the two electron shells. The detection of the X-rays emitted... 

The chemical nature and composition of catalyst surfaces are essential parameters for understanding catalytic reactivity. Electron spectroscopies, mainly Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) and Ion Scattering Spectroscopy (ISS) allow such information to be obtained. AES and XPS are most likely to provide meaningful data if the surface region of the solid is homogeneous over a depth several times the inelastic mean free path of the emitted electrons. 

X-ray photoelectron diffraction is the coherent superposition of a directly photo-emitted electron wave with the elastically scattered waves from near-neighboring atoms. This gives element-specific structural information about the near surface atoms in a single crystal [8-10]. The short inelastic mean free path of the electron waves at the kinetic energies of interest (15 to 1000 eV) leads to surface sensitivity and determination of the atomic geometry of the emitting atom. The known energies of narrow XPS core-level peaks lead to element specificity. The resolution of surface peaks and chemical shifts may even sometimes lead to a chemical state-specific structure determination. 

In the case of incoherent radiation, which would then indicate inelastic scattering or also Compton scattering, the wavelengths of the radiations emitted by the various electrons are different, depending on what orbital is considered. Therefore, there is no interference. The intensity scattered by the entire atom is the sum of the intensities scattered by each of the electrons and it is written ... 

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