The role of the plasmon mechanism in the secondary electron emission in LiF

Energy distributions of secondary electrons emitted by LiF monocrystals were measured for various energies and angles of incidence of the primary electron beam. The analysis has shown the dominating role of the plasmon mechanism of secondary electron generation. On this base a simple model to calculate the secondary electron yield has been developed. This model made it possible to estimate the contribution of each mechanism of secondary electron generation to the total yield. Good agreement between experimental and calculated data was found. It has been also shown that in LiF the plasmon mechanism can produce up to 90 percent of the total number of escaped secondary electrons.