Elastic scattering of low-energy electrons by randomly oriented and aligned molecules: Influence of full non-spherical potentials

Elastic scattering of low (10–50 eV) kinetic energy electrons from free diatomic molecules is studied using a single-center expansion of the full molecular potential. Dynamic exchange and polarization are included in a local form. The calculated elastic differential scattering cross-sections (DCS) for electron impact on CO and N 2 are in good agreement with available experimental data. The importance of using the full molecular potential instead of a two-center potential approach is pointed out. These corrections are small for energies above 50 eV, but they become increasingly important at lower energies. When discussing the angular distributions of elastically-scattered electrons from oriented molecules (like surface adsorbates), we show that these corrections are particularly significant. The results have implications for other electron scattering problems such as those encountered in low-energy photoelectron diffraction from both core and valence levels.