Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2020) 135: 358
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-020-00354-3

Regular Article

Theoretical derivation and benchmarking of cross sections for low-energy electron transport in gold

¹ Present address: Université Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS/IN2P3, IP2I Lyon, 69622, Villeurbanne, France
² St.Petersburg National Research Academic University RAS, St. Petersburg, Russia 194021,
³ CIMAP, unité mixte CEA-CNRS-ENSICAEN-UCBN 6252 BP 5133, 14070, Caen Cedex 05, France

^* e-mail: m.beuve@univ-lyon1.fr

Received: 16 July 2019
Accepted: 20 March 2020
Published online: 15 April 2020

Abstract

Simulation of transport of electrons through matter is used in many applications. Some of them need models that are both efficient in terms of computing time and accurate over a wide range of electron energy. For certain applications such as radiochemistry and radiotherapy enhanced by metallic nanoparticles, it is desirable to consider relatively low-energy electrons. We have implemented a physical model for electron transport down to low energy in solid metallic media that meets both of the aforementioned requirements. The main goal of this paper is to present the theoretical framework of our Monte Carlo simulation, its application to gold metal and an extensive comparison with available data for gold foils irradiated by electron beams, for projectile energies ranging from a few eV to 90 keV. In particular, we calculated secondary electron emission to assess the accuracy of our code at energies below 50 eV. A close agreement with experiment is obtained for a large range of energy, even though the backward emission yields of low-energy electron are systematically underestimated. Nevertheless, the quality and numerical efficiency of the simulation are encouraging for nanoscale applications such as nanodosimetry or radiochemistry in presence of gold nanoparticles.