Influence of screening length modification on the scattering cross section in LEIS

Scattering cross sections for He+ ions in the energy range of 100 eV to 100 keV and for Al, Cu and Au target atoms were calculated. Employing the Thomas–Fermi–Molière model the potential strength was tuned by variation of the screening length. The resulting change in scattering cross section was analyzed and the absolute value is compared to cross sections obtained from potentials commonly employed in the medium-energy ion scattering (MEIS) regime. A large influence on the scattering cross section is observed for targets with large atomic number in the very low energy range. For instance, the scattering cross section for 100 eV He+-ions scattered from Au by 129° changes by a factor of 2.5 between different potential strengths claimed in the literature to be suitable for low-energy ion scattering (LEIS) energies. An experiment to determine electronic energy loss of very slow ions in metals is presented. It shows how uncertainties in the scattering potential strength can lead to systematically wrong results, although perfect agreement between experimental data and simulations is found. The impact of these results on quantitative surface structure and composition analysis is discussed.