Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Electron Emission from Cold and Hot Graphene under Proton Irradiation

Characteristic properties of secondary electrons emitted from irradiated two-dimensional materials arise from multi-length and multi-time-scale relaxation processes that connect the initial nonequilibrium excited electron distribution with their eventual emission. To understand these processes, which are critical for using secondary electrons as high-resolution thermalization probes, we combine first-principles real-time electron dynamics with irradiation experiments. Our data for cold and hot proton-irradiated graphene show signatures of kinetic and potential emission and generally good agreement for electron yields between experiment and theory. The duration of the emission pulse is about 1.5 fs, which indicates high time resolution when used as a probe. Our newly developed method to predict kinetic energy spectra shows good agreement with electron and ion irradiation experiments and prior models. We find that the lattice temperature significantly increases secondary electron emission, whereas electron temperature has a negligible effect.