Secondary electron emission from gold microparticles in a transmission electron microscope: comparison of Monte Carlo simulations with experimental results

Abstract We measure the electron beam-induced current to analyze the electron-induced secondary electron (SE) emission from micron-sized gold particles illuminated by 80 and 300 keV electrons in a transmission electron microscope. A direct comparison of the experimental and simulated SE emission (SEE) employing Monte Carlo scattering simulations based on the GEANT4 toolkit yields overall good agreement with a noticeable discrepancy arising from the shortcoming of the GEANT4 scattering cross sections in the low-loss regime. Thus, the electron beam-induced current analysis allows to quantify the inelastic scattering including SEE in the transmission electron microscope and provides further insight into the charging mechanisms.