Angular Distribution of Electrons Elastically Scattered from Copper Surfaces, Polished and Textured by Argon Flux

Abstract

Angular distributions of the elastically scattered secondary electrons from two kinds of Cu surfaces, polished and textured by 2 keV Ar⁺ have been studied in the energy range from 50 eV to 2 keV. The results show that for the polished Cu surface the elastic scattering process is dominated by atomic scattering from single atoms (although, contributions from othei processes are also important). However when the textured surface was studied, new multiple peaks appeared on the angular distributions. Positions of these peaks for the various angles of incidence and primary energies indicate that their origin lies in the diffraction of the primary electrons on some kind of a polycrystalline structure. This structure is probably created by the process of recrystallization induced by ion sputtering similar to the sputtering induced crystallization process already known for some oxides and nonmetallic compounds.