Electron energy loss in carbon nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper models electron energy loss in carbon nanostructures like fullerenes and nanotubes using atomic polarizability and quantum mechanics, achieving good agreement with experiments across a range of energies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel formalism combining atomic polarizability with quantum mechanics to simulate electron energy loss spectra in carbon nanostructures.

Findings

Good agreement with experimental data across 1 keV to 60 keV energies

Detailed analysis of loss probability as a function of electron deflection angle

Effective simulation of electron energy loss spectra in fullerenes and nanotubes

Abstract

The response of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes is investigated by representing each carbon atom by its atomic polarizability. The polarization of each carbon atom produces an induced dipole that is the result of the interaction with a given external field plus the mutual interaction among carbon atoms. The polarizability is obtained from the dielectric function of graphite after invoking the Clausius-Mossotti relation. This formalism is applied to the simulation of electron energy loss spectra both in fullerenes and in carbon nanotubes. The case of broad electron beams is considered and the loss probability is analyzed in detail as a function of the electron deflection angle within a fully quantum-mechanical description of the electrons. A general good agreement with available experiments is obtained in a wide range of probe energies between 1 keV and 60 keV.