Regular Article

Surface and bulk plasmon excitations of silver by electron impact^★

¹ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, Anhui, P.R. China
² Institute for Nuclear Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (ATOMKI), Bem tér 18/c, 4026 Debrecen, Hungary
³ ELI-ALPS, ELI-HU Non-Profit Ltd., Dugonics tér 13, 6720 Szeged, Hungary

^a e-mail: zjding@ustc.edu.cn

Received: 31 October 2018
Received in final form: 27 November 2018
Published online: 5 February 2019

Abstract

We present an analysis of electron incident angle-dependent reflected electron energy loss spectroscopy spectra of silver by using a Monte Carlo simulation method with which the separated contributions from surface and bulk excitations can be identified. The simulations were performed at several different incident electron energies and with various incident angles with respect to the surface normal. We found that the surface plasmon excitation plays a dominant role in the loss peak at around 3.7 and 7.5 eV.