An Improved Monte Carlo Algorithm for Elastic Electron Backscattering from Surfaces

Abstract. The problen of the backscattering of electrons from metal targets is subject of extensive theoreticel and experimental work in sur-face analysis. We are interested in the angular distribution of the back-scattered electrons. The flow of electrons satisfies an integral equation, which might be solved by Monte Carlo methods. The Monte Carlo ap-proach, used by A.Dubus, A. Jablonski and S.Tougaard in their paper “Evaluation of theoretical models for elastic electron backscattering from surfaces ” (1999), is based upon direct simulation of the physical process. We introduce different weights in the Monte Carlo algorithm, which de-crease the variance. We also introduce artificial absorption probability and demonstrate significant improvements in the efficiency of the algo-rithm. Results of extensive numerical tests are presented.