Polar angular distributions of L23Al Auger electrons emitted in Ar+-polycrystalline Al solid target collisions

Energy-resolved angular distributions of both continuum background and L23Al Auger electrons emitted in Ar+-polycrystalline Al target collisions were studied. For continuum background electrons the experimental profile closely follows a cosine distribution law, giving evidence for an isotropic excitation process. From Auger polar angular distributions a nonisotropic Auger excitation was observed to depend on the ion incidence and ionic energy. This anisotropy can be compared to that seen in Auger electron angular distributions from gaseous targets, which is interpreted by a nonequal population of magnetic sublevels of the emitting atom after the ionizing collision. (orig.)