A secondary electron is emitted from a material after excitation by incident radiation or particles, rather than simply being a high-energy primary electron redirected back out. Many detected secondaries have low enough kinetic energy that escape strongly favors regions near a surface.

This makes secondary-electron collection useful for secondary-electron topographic contrast in a scanning electron microscope. Surface angle, local electric fields and collector bias affect the signal as well as emission itself. Backscattered primaries can also excite secondary electrons away from the probe's immediate landing position, so every detected secondary need not originate directly beneath the nominal probe.^[ref]

A backscattered electron is a primary beam electron redirected out through the incident side of a specimen after scattering. Backscattered signals commonly retain much more of the incident kinetic energy than emitted low-energy secondary electrons.^[ref]

In a scanning electron microscope, collecting these electrons can provide backscattered-electron atomic-number contrast, but specimen tilt, collection geometry and crystallographic electron channeling also change brightness. Comparing detector directions or tilting the specimen tests some of those contributions. A bright region is therefore not uniquely a region of greater atomic number.

The average loss of electron kinetic energy per path length, including collisional and radiative contributions.

A change of direction of an electron through interaction with matter. It can redistribute a transmitted beam outside a detector's collection region without stopping every diverted electron.

The rest mass of an electron.

A collection of mobile electrons treated statistically. A dense electron gas in a metal generally requires Fermi-Dirac statistics.

The classical electron radius is the length scale $r_e=e^2/(4\pi {ϵ}_0{m}_e{c}^2)$ formed from the elementary charge, vacuum permittivity, electron mass and speed of light. It is not a measured material radius of an electron. In the classical low-energy scattering model it sets the Thomson cross-section, ${\sigma }_T=8\pi r_e^2/3$.

Phenomena involving magnetic fields, including those produced by electric currents and magnetic moments.

A small total magnetic moment can hide extensive magnetic order. Compare three questions: are the individual magnetic moments nonzero, how are their directions correlated, and what is their vector sum? Ferromagnetism, antiferromagnetism, and ferrimagnetism answer the second question differently. The third question alone cannot identify the order.

An eddy current is a circulating electric current induced within an electrical conductor by changing magnetic flux, as described by Faraday's law of induction. Its magnetic field opposes the inducing change according to Lenz's law; electrical resistance converts electrical energy into heat.

Electromagnetic induction includes an induced electromotive force associated with a changing magnetic field or motion of a conductor in a magnetic field. Faraday's law of induction and motional electromotive force specify the relevant contributions.

Electricity concerns phenomena associated with electric charge, including electric fields and electric currents.

Electromagnetic reciprocity relates the response obtained after exchanging source and receiver in a linear reciprocal medium. For suitably normalized ports it gives a symmetric scattering matrix. It does not require zero reflection. A magnetically biased Faraday effect provides an important optical example in which reciprocity can fail.

Section 13.4; whole-book authorship applies.

Online text: web.mit.edu/course/6/6.013_book/www/chapter13/13.4.html

Cited passage: Demonstration 13.4.1 and Fig. 13.4.5.

For negligible self-inductance, a loop with electrical resistance $R$ obeys $I=-{\dot{\Phi }}_{\mathrm{ext}}/R$. With ${\Phi }_{\mathrm{ext}}=AB(t)\cos \theta$, this gives $I=-(A/R)\dot{B}\cos \theta +(A/R)B\sin \theta \dot{\theta }$. Its magnetic torque isFor $B=B_0\sin \omega t$ and slow mechanical motion, the first term averages to zero while the second gives the displayed opposing torque. A stationary loop nevertheless experiences an alternating torque at $2\omega$ and generally executes small forced motion. The zero leading mean aligning torque is not a claim of exactly zero instantaneous motion or of no higher-order effect.

In a flexible crosslinked polymer network, deformation restricts the configurations of chain segments between cross-links. The resulting decrease of entropy produces a restoring entropic force. For an ideal affine Gaussian network, the shear modulus is $G={\nu }_s{k}_{B}T$, where ${\nu }_s$ is the number density of elastically active strands. A nearly incompressible isotropic rubber has Young's modulus $E\simeq 3G$. At fixed network density within the rubbery regime, both increase approximately linearly with absolute temperature. This statement does not describe crossing the glass transition or chemical degradation.

A rubbery material based mainly on cis-rich polyisoprene. A lightly crosslinked network provides recoverable deformation through rubber elasticity.

By Albert Einstein. Paper 5, pp. 177–197; originally Annalen der Physik 17, 132–148 (1905).

Cited passages: §§7–8, pp. 191–196.

Plankton are aquatic organisms whose large-scale movement is strongly influenced by water currents. The group is defined by ecological mode rather than a single evolutionary origin: phytoplankton include photosynthetic forms, whereas zooplankton include drifting consumers.

Many plankton can swim locally or change depth, so drifting does not mean complete immobility. Vertical movement can change access to light, nutrients and predators, linking behaviour to transport by currents and to an aquatic food web.