LEED: Principle of operation:

Figure 7.03 demonstrates the formation of diffraction pattern from the LEED.

Figure 7.03: Schematic of diffraction pattern formation.

• Only a few beams get diffracted and generate diffraction patterns. This can can be seen clealy from the 2D reciprocal lattice.
• Some beams scattered over the surface (invisible)
• Some beams back-scattered towards the source
• More beams visible as k increases (smaller λ, larger K.E.)