Detailed Monte Carlo simulation of electron transport in a material slab

Abstract

A detailed Monte Carlo simulation of electron transport in a slab is performed by using a purely analytical interaction model. Elastic collisions are described by means of the differential cross section (DCS) obtained from the Born approximation with the Wentzel-Molière potential. Inelastic scattering is modelled on the basis of the Bethe formula for the stopping power with the Rao-Sahib and Wittry extrapolation to low energies. A simple model for the DCS of inelastic collisions is obtained by assuming the Thomson DCS for hard collisions and a \constant" DCS, separated by a cut-off determined from the equipartition rule. The model allows exact analytical random sampling from all the distributions involved in the process. Simulation results are compared with experimental data from the literature for electron beams with intermediate energies, from 9 keV to 100 keV energies. The agreement is qualitatively good, in spite of the simplicity of the model and the program