Identifying Electronic Doorway States in Secondary Electron Emission from Layered Materials

We investigate the secondary low-energy electron emission induced by inelastic electron scattering from graphene and layered materials thereof. By applying a coincidence detection of the primary scattered and the emitted secondary electron we unravel pronounced resonance features otherwise overshadowed by the largely structureless secondary electron energy distribution. Supported by density functional theory calculations we show that these structures are the signature of prominent resonances above the vacuum threshold which originate from interlayer states acting as a doorway state for electron emission. Remarkably, some of these doorway states open up only for samples with more than five layers.