Analysis of secondary electron emission properties of MgO/Au composite film with an Al-doped MgO surface layer

Abstract

To improve the electron-induced secondary electron emission (SEE) properties of MgO/Au composite film, the strategy of Al doping in the MgO surface layer is adopted and investigated. For an MgO/Au film, Al doping in its MgO surface layer results in a slight increase of its grain size as well as a reduction of its surface roughness according to microstructure characterizations and also causes the decreases of both the band gap and work function of MgO crystal on the basis of the first-principles calculations, all of which have a close relationship with the improvement of secondary electron yield (SEY) demonstrated by the SEE measurement. An MgO/Au film including an Al-doped MgO surface layer with a doping ratio of 4.4% has an SEY of 4.7 with an increase of 14.6% at a primary electron energy (Ep) of 200 eV and the maximum SEY of 10.4 with an increase of 8.3% at Ep of 1100 eV in comparison with an MgO/Au film including an undoped MgO surface layer.