Simple polynomial approximation to modified Bethe formula low-energy electron stopping powers data

A recently published detailed and exhaustive paper on cross-sections for ionisation induced by keV electrons clearly shows that electron phenomena occurring in parallel with X-ray processes may have been dramatically overlooked for many years, mainly when low atomic number species are involved since, in these cases, the fluorescence coefficient is smaller than the Auger yield. An immediate problem is encountered while attempting to tackle the issue. Accounting for electron phenomena requires the knowledge of the stopping power of electrons within, at least, a reasonably small error. Still, the Bethe formula for stopping powers is known to not be valid for electron energies below 30 keV, and its use leads to values far off experimental ones. Recently, a few authors have addressed this problem and both detailed tables of electron stopping powers for various atomic species and attempts to simplify the calculations, have emerged. Nevertheless, its implementation in software routines to efficiently calculate keV electron effects in materials quickly becomes a bit cumbersome. Following a procedure already used to establish efficient methods to calculate ionisation cross-sections by protons and alpha particles, it became clear that a simple polynomial approximation could be set, which allows retrieving the electronic stopping powers with errors of less than 20% for energies above 500 eV and less than 50% for energies between 50 eV and 500 eV. In this work, we present this approximation which, based on just six parameters, allows to recover electron stopping power values that are less than 20% different from recently published experimentally validated tabulated data. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.