Elastic scattering of electrons by silicon, germanium and tin tetrahalides

This article reports the elastic collision cross section for the tetrahedral compounds of silicon, germanium and tin by intermediate to high energy (20-5000 eV) electrons. The calculations were carried out using a quantum mechanical approach called spherical complex optical potential (SCOP) formalism. Under the same frame work the total scattering cross section has been also studied. Among the studied molecules, the total scattering cross sections for SiCl4 and GeCl4 by electrons has been compared with available experimental values. For all other molecules the elastic and total cross sections are reported for the first time. We have also investigated the halogenation effect by comparing the ratio of cross sections for different halides.