Multiple Scattering in Electron Rutherford Scattering Spectroscopy

We present a theoretical description of the spectra of electrons elastically scattered from various samples. The analysis is based on very large scale Monte Carlo simulations of the recoil and Doppler effects in reflection and transmission geometries. Besides the experimentally measurable energy distributions the simulations give many partial distributions separately, depending on the number of elastic scatterings (single, and multiple scatterings of different types). Furthermore, we present detailed analytical calculations for the main parameters of the single scattering, taking into account both the ideal scattering geometry, i.e. infinitesimally small angular range, and the effects of the real, finite angular range used in the measurements. The effect of the multiple scattering on intensity ratios, peak shifts and broadening, are shown. We show results for multicomponent and double layer samples. Our Monte Carlo simulations are compared with experimental data. We found that our results are in good agreement with the experimental observations.

Keywords: Elastic scattering, Monte Carlo simulation, Multiple scattering, Recoil and Doppler effects, Reflection and transmission geometries.