Electron inelastic plasmon scattering and its resonance propagation at crystal surfaces in RHEED

The modified multislice theory [Wang (1989). Acta Cryst. A45, 193-199] has been employed to calculate the electron reflection intensity with and without considering the plasmon diffuse scattering in the geometry of reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED). It has been shown that the inelastic scattering can greatly enhance the reflectance of a surface, depending critically on the incident conditions of the electrons. At some incidences, the inelastic resonance reflection is enhanced, which is considered as the 'true' surface resonance state. This happens within a very narrow angular range (<1 mrad). For 'true' resonance states, the inelastic intensity is much stronger than for other conditions as shown both theoretically and experimentally. The enhancement of the reflection intensity may not be the proper criterion for identifying the 'true' surface resonance. Besides the surface plasmon peaks, an 'extra' peak, located at 4.5 eV, is observed in the reflection electron energy-loss spectroscopy (REELS) study of the 'true' resonance of GaAs (110) surface. This is considered as a characteristic of the resonance propagations of the electrons along the surface and may result from the generation of resonance radiation.