METHODS OF ELECTRON-SPECTRA PROCESSING BASED ON SOLVING THE TRANSPORT-EQUATION OF ELECTRON MOTION IN A SOLID

Within the transport approximation, the problem of the elastic and inelastic scattering of Auger electrons, photoelectrons and backscattered electrons is investigated. The use of an invariant-embedding approach allows the derivation of analytical expressions for the path length distribution for both emitted and backscattered electrons. These functions are used to produce a new procedure for background subtraction in AES/XPS and to develop a technique of REELS processing to reconstruct both the electron differential energy loss cross-section in a solid and the ratio lambda(i)/lambda(tr) where lambda(i) is the inelastic mean free path and lambda(tr) is the transport path for elastic scattering.