Extended Mermin method for calculating the electron inelastic mean free path

We propose an improved method for calculating electron inelastic mean free paths (IMFPs) in solids from experimental energy-loss functions based on the Mermin dielectric function. The "extended Mermin" method employs a nonlimited number of Mermin oscillators and allows negative oscillators...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2014-08, Vol.113 (6), p.063201-063201, Article 063201
Main Authors: Da, B, Shinotsuka, H, Yoshikawa, H, Ding, Z J, Tanuma, S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Copper
Electronics
Fine structure
Infrared
Mathematical analysis
Mean free path
Oscillators
Preserves
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Summary:We propose an improved method for calculating electron inelastic mean free paths (IMFPs) in solids from experimental energy-loss functions based on the Mermin dielectric function. The "extended Mermin" method employs a nonlimited number of Mermin oscillators and allows negative oscillators to take into account not only electronic transitions, as is common in the traditional approaches, but also infrared transitions and inner shell electron excitations. The use of only Mermin oscillators naturally preserves two important sum rules when extending to infinite momentum transfer. Excellent agreement is found between calculated IMFPs for Cu and experimental measurements from elastic peak electron spectroscopy. Notably improved fits to the IMFPs derived from analyses of x-ray absorption fine structure measurements for Cu and Mo illustrate the importance of the contribution of infrared transitions in IMFP calculations at low energies.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.113.063201