Dielectric matrix calculation of the differential cross section for plasmon excitation and application to electron diffraction.

Abstract

We present a calculation of the differential cross section for plasmon excitation in Si based on a dielectric matrix which takes into account the electronic band structure of the solid. This result is compared with simple free-electron theory. The differential cross sections are then applied to calculate energy unfiltered convergent beam electron-diffraction patterns for Si for cases where experimental data exist. The simple model for multiple scattering due to plasmon excitation used here gives good overall agreement with experiment, the dielectric matrix calculation more so than that using free-electron theory. © 1996 The American Physical Society.