Interpretation of Low-Energy Electron-Diffraction Spectra for a Free-Electron Metal in Terms of Multiple Scattering Involving Strong Inelastic Damping

The multiple-scattering approach with strong inelastic damping has been used to formulate low-energy electron-diffraction intensity curves without the use of adjustable parameters. The results have been applied to the interpretation of spectra for the clean (001) face of aluminum with good agreement. Inclusion of energy-dependent higher order phase shifts obtained from a realistic potential, of energy-dependent strong inelastic damping, and of temperature effects contributes significantly to the agreement of the calculation with experiment.