Elastic and inelastic scattering of 40 eV electrons from atomic and molecular bismuth

Differential and integral electron impact cross sections for elastic scattering and for excitation of the first four electronic states of bismuth have been determined at 40 eV impact energy. The cross sections were normalized to the absolute scale by using the optical f-value of the 6p^27s ^4P_(1/2) transition. The integral cross sections for elastic scattering (6p^3 ^4S_(3/2)) and for the excitation of the 6p^3 ^2D_(3/2), ^2D_(5/2), ^2P_(1/2) and 6p^27s^4P_(1/2) states are: 45.0, 0.29, 0.46, 0.17 and 3.8*10^(-16) cm^2, respectively. Inelastic scattering from Bi2 molecules was also detected