Elastic Scattering of Electrons from Copper at Intermediate Energies

We present both experimental and theoretical differential cross sections for the elastic scattering of electrons from copper atoms. The experimental measurements were performed for 40, 60, 80 and 100 eV. Theoretical calculations are presented for energies between 10 and 100 eV and compared with present and previous theoretical and experimental results. The present experimental measurements overlap with previous measurements at 60 and 100 eV and the overall agreement is good if previous measurements are renormalized. It is found that second-order distorted-wave calculations are in reasonable agreement with experiment only for energies of 40 eV and greater. Previous second-order distorted-wave studies for electron-alkali atom scattering found agreement to much lower energies, which implies that the inner d-shell for copper may play an important role for low-energy elastic scattering.