Electron transport characteristics in water under electrostrictive effect

Abstract

The transport characteristics of electrons are crucial for the initiation and development of pulse discharge in water. In this work, we develop a physical model of electron transport that consides elastic and inelastic collision cross sections. The purpose of this study is to investigate frequency variations of elastic collisions, ionization and excitation collisions with different initial electron energy values, and to explore the characteristic of electron energy loss in water. The Monte Carlo method is employed to track structure characteristics of electron transmission and scattering under varying energy values. The results show that the electrons of lower energy (~20 eV) are significantly impacted by the water molecule scattering, hence their transmission capacities are weakened. When the incident energy of electron reaches 100 eV, the scattering deviation distance is roughly equivalent to the transmission depth, about 6–8 nm, and the maximum deviation angle <i>θ</i>_shift ~ 60°. When the electron incident energy is in a range of 10–1000 eV, the number of elastic collisions is much greater than the number of excitation and ionization collisions, and the number of ionization collisions and excitation collisions increases significantly with the increase of electron energy. The higher the electron incident energy, the greater the energy loss is. However, the energy loss decreases sharply with the extension of penetration distance. For the ionization collision, the average ionization energy loss, <i>W</i>, decreases rapidly with the increase of electron energy, and ultimately maintains at a level of 20–30 eV, which is consistent with the experimental results reported.