Characteristics of electron inelastic interactions in organic compounds and water over the energy range 20-10 000 eV

Calculations of inelastic mean free paths, stopping powers, and continuous slowing down ranges for ten solid organic materials: polyethylene, guanine, poly(2-vinylpyridine), diphenyl-hexatriene, carotene, polystyrene, polymethyl(methacrylate), paraffin, polybudene sulfone, polyacetylene and water have been performed for electrons in the 20 eV-10 keV energy range. The complex dielectric formalism was used for estimating the valence part of the transport characteristics, whereas part of the electron-core interactions was evaluated using the binary encounter approximation. The calculations have been extended to account the exchange effect. Detailed comparison of the calculated data with available experimental and theoretical results is presented. The calculated mean ionization potentials for all considered materials were found in good agreement with the ICRU-37 data. Trends of the energy dependence of the inelastic mean free paths, stopping powers, and ranges are discussed. It was shown that Bethe's nonrelativistic stopping power theory within an accuracy of 10% can be applied to these materials far below 10 keV. The presented data constitute a data base for Monte Carlo simulation of electron transport in organic materials, having a wide field of applications in microdosimetry, electron lithography, and others. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)04922-1].