Hi!
I’m wondering if there is a way of triggering a physics process for an optical photon when it its a boundary.
I want to simulate the optical photoelectric effect: when an optical photon hits a metal surface, sometimes it undergoes a photoelectric effect and produces an ionization electron, with a given probability.
I’m having problems combining the simulation of reflection (which happens, too, when the photon hits the metal), which I implement with an optical dielectric_metal surface and the photoelectric process.
Do you know if Geant4 already provides a way of doing this?
Thank you
Paola
One thought is to modify G4OpBoundaryProcess to create secondary electron when the photoelectric process occurs. In the source file, find method DielectricMetal() and try to follow the logic. Likely, where DoAbsorption() is called, you’ll want a new method DoPhotoElectric().
Post back if you’d like more detailed information (I’d have to look into it).
There are limited options for simulating the ~3 eV electron, though.
Thank you for the suggestion! The problem I see with modifying the Geant4 process is that I should call a custom-made class (the optical photoelectric effect is not present in Geant4, to the best of my knowledge, or is it?).
You are correct that the photoelectric effect for optical photons is not in Geant4. There are several options for including it. They all involve creating a new process (as that’s what it is), which may be based on on existing process.
Right, I may simply copy my class into Geant4, with little modifications. I’ll give it a try!
Thanks
Paola