Malter effect

The Malter effect, named after Louis Malter, who first described this in 1936, is a phenomenon of solid state physics, which describes an increased secondary electron emission from samples with non-conductive thin films.

Description

, A sample of an ionizing radiation such as electrons, ions or X-rays, suspended, photoelectrons ( secondary electrons ) can be released from their bonds, and leave the sample. For samples with a thin electrically conductive layers, this leads to a positive electrical charge on the surface. These charges produce a very high electric field in the non-conductive layer that attracts electrons from deeper regions of the sample, which also emerge from the sample surface (cf. field emission ). This current is referred to as Malter stream and leads to an increased secondary emission current decays slowly, due to the degradation of the charge by switching off the primary radiation.