Effect of Different Electron Elastic-Scattering Cross Sections on Inelastic Mean Free Paths Obtained from Elastic-Backscattering Experiments

Inelastic mean free paths (IMFPs) of electrons with energies between 100eV and 5,000eV have been frequently obtained from measurements of elastic-backscattering probabilities for different specimen materials. A calculation of these probabilities is also required to determine IMFPs. We report calculations of elastic-backscattering probabilities for gold at energies of 100eV and 500eV with differential elastic-scattering cross sections obtained from the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac potential and the more reliable Dirac-Hartree-Fock potential. For two representative experimental configurations, the average deviation between IMFPs obtained with cross sections from the two potentials was 11.4%.