Quantitative interpretation of the low-loss electron signal

Low-loss electron spectra from clean elemental standards of C, Si, Cr, Fe, Cu, Ag, and Au are presented and theoretically interpreted with the aid of two basic theories. One of these assumes a simple elastic scattering and Bethe loss regime in which the low-loss signal arises from primary electrons that have undergone a single large-angle scattering event and whose energy loss is described by the continuous slowing down approximation. However, better qualitative agreement with experiment is obtained when multiple elastic scattering is considered via the transport approximation for electron deflection. The simple low-loss electron detector used to obtain the data is also described.