A new examination of secondary electron yield data

A new and thorough examination of secondary electron (SE) yield as a function of primary energy (EPE) and atomic number Z for the 44 elements in the database1 is made. The principles of the semiempirical universal law for the SE yield are described and a template for Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is produced accordingly. Both universal curve fitting and MC simulation are made for the 44 elements. The resulted maximum SE yield δm, corresponding primary energy $E_ PE^ m$, SE excitation energy ε, and effective escape depth λ are tabulated and plotted as a function of atomic number Z. It is found that similarities exist in the profiles of ε and λ, δm and $E_ PE^ m$, and all of these parameters seem to have characteristics associated with atomic shell filling. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.