The scattering of high energy electrons by the thermal vibrations of crystals

The theory of the thermal scattering of high energy electrons propagating through crystals is derived starting from the scattering by individual atoms, the electron before scattering being represented by a Bloch wave. The equivalence of this method with the usual quantum mechanical approach is established. Comparison calculations show that the phonon model used to describe the vibrations leads to values of the absorption coefficients similar to those obtained using the simpler Einstein model of the vibrations.