Secondary Electron Emission from Solid Metal Surfaces

Abstract

A considerable amount of experimental work has been done in recent years on the properties of the electrons which leave a metal surface when it is bombarded by an incident beam of electrons. Farnsworth, who first studied the energy distribution of the secondary beam systematically, showed that it is made up of two groups. The first has the same energy as the primary beam and may be regarded as consisting of reflected primary electrons; and the second has for the most part a very small energy, of the order of a few volts, and contains the true secondaries derived from the metal. The present writer in a preliminary note has described some measurements of the differential energy distribution by means of the magnetic spectrum method. Owing to an inadequate technique those experiments are considered to be valid only in the upper half of the energy range, where the form of the distribution has several features of particular interest when the mechanism of secondary emission and of electron reflection are considered. In this note, the author called attention to the peculiar depression in the curve immediately preceding the “reflected” peak. It was impossible then to insist on the reality of such an effect, owing to the probable presence of an instrumental cause (which was given there as the explanation). That it is real, however, has been demonstrated in a striking manner by Whiddington and Brown, who have succeeded in recording electrons as slow as 100 volts photographically on a specially sensitised film.