Calculation of secondary electron emission yields from low-energy electron deposition in tungsten surfaces

TL;DR

This paper models secondary electron emission yields from tungsten surfaces at low energies and various angles, using Monte Carlo simulations and symbolic regression, aligning well with experimental data and aiding future nanoarchitected surface studies.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive Monte Carlo simulation approach combined with symbolic regression to accurately predict SEE yields in tungsten across energies and angles.

Findings

Good agreement with experimental data

First step towards nanoarchitected surface studies

Provides fitted functions for SEE yields

Abstract

We present calculations of secondary electron emission (SEE) yields in tungsten as a function of primary electron energies between 50 eV and 1 keV and incidence angles between 0 and 90{\deg}. We conduct a review of the established Monte Carlo methods to simulate multiple electron scattering in solids and select the best suited to study SEE in high-Z metals. We generate secondary electron yield and emission energy functions of the incident energy and angle and fit them to bivariate fitting functions using symbolic regression. We compare the numerical results with experimental data, with good agreement found. Our calculations are the first step towards studying SEE in nanoarchitected surfaces for electric propulsion chamber walls.