Inelastically scattered electrons mechanisms of energy loss

2 Inelastically scattered electrons mechanisms of energy loss 

When electrons interact with matter, they lose energy by four mechanisms 

1 Thermal diffuse or phonon scattering. The incident electrons interact with atoms that are oscillating about their mean positions and lose or gain energy of the order of kT ( 0.025 eV at room temperature). This amount of energy is too small to be detected by any available electron spectrometer, and there is no evidence that these phonon-scattered electrons contain any microanalytical information. 

2 Plasmon scattering. The incident electrons lose energy by exciting collective oscillations (called plasmons) of the valence electrons. The energy loss is of the order of 15 eV, and plasmon loss peaks are prominent in the low-loss region of electron energy-loss spectra. 

If the energy of the incident electron is high enough to ionize an atom 

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