Correlation Between Variation of Secondary Electron Emission and Atomic Number

Abstract

The relative mean variation of the secondary emission as a function of the energy of the primary electrons is found to correlate with the atomic number of the elements bombarded. The evidence suggests that the secondary emission from a given element when bombarded by electrons of high energy may be represented to a first approximation by an equation of the form $R=\frac{k}{{{E}_{p}}^{s}}$, where $R$ is the ratio of the total secondary current to the incident current and ${E}_{p}$ is the energy of the incident beam. $k$ and $s$ are constants characterizing a given curve, and evidence is presented to show that $s$ decreases as the atomic number increases. The significance of the correlation is very briefly discussed.