Study of low-energy-electron forward focusing effects on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite using scanning auger microscopy

The effects of the electron diffraction in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite are studied in an incident electron beam of energy range 500–700 eV using scanning Auger microscopy. The intensity of the exiting electrons monitored by a cylindrical-mirror analyzer can be well interpreted as the joint effect of incident and exit forward focusing along the close-packed <21¯1¯2>-type atomic chains, with the contribution from forward focusing along the secondary close-packed atomic chains increasing rapidly as the beam energy increases. Incident beam effects contribute greatly to the variation in the intensity of the exiting electrons. Increasing the beam energy in this range also increases the anisotropy observed in the angular distribution of the intensity of both elastically scattered and Auger electrons. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.