High-resolution study of quasi-elastic electron scattering from a two-layer system

In large-angle elastic scattering events of keV electrons a significant amount of momentum is transferred from the electron to a nucleus in the target. As a consequence kinetic energy is transferred from the energetic electron to the nucleus, and hence these processes can be referred to as ‘quasi-elastic’. How much energy is transferred depends on the mass of the nucleus. In this paper, we present measurements from a two-layer system (a germanium layer and a carbon layer), and at high energies the quasi-elastic peaks of Ge and C are clearly resolved. It is demonstrated that the sample geometry has a huge effect on the observed relative intensities. It is shown that the intensities are influenced by the elastic scattering cross-section of the atoms in the film, film composition and selective attenuation, due to varying amount of inelastic scattering for layers of the film. However truly quantitative agreement is not obtained.