Anomalous photoelectric emission from Ag on zinc-phthalocyanine film

Journal Article · Mon May 12 04:00:00 EDT 2014 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4876956· OSTI ID:22273420

Tanaka, Senku ^[1]; Otani, Tomohiro; Fukuzawa, Ken; Hiromitsu, Ichiro ^[2]; Ogawa, Koji; Azuma, Junpei; Yamamoto, Isamu; Takahashi, Kazutoshi; Kamada, Masao ^[3]

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1. Department of Electric and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Kinki University, Higashiosaka 577-8502 (Japan)
2. Department of Physics and Materials Science, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Shimane University, Matsue 690-8504 (Japan)
3. Synchrotron Light Application Center, Saga University, Saga 840-8502 (Japan)

Photoelectric emission from organic and metal thin films is generally observed with irradiation of photon energy larger than 4 eV. In this paper, however, we report photoelectric emission from Ag on a zinc-phthalocyanine (ZnPc) layer at a photon energy of 3.4 eV. The threshold energy for this photoelectric emission is much smaller than the work function of Ag estimated by conventional photoelectron spectroscopy. The photoelectric emission by low-energy photons is significant for Ag thicknesses of less than 1 nm. Photoelectron spectroscopy and morphological study of the Ag/ZnPc suggest that the anomalous photoelectric emission from the Ag surface is caused by a vacuum level shift at the Ag/ZnPc interface and by surface plasmons of the Ag nanoparticles.

• OSTI ID: 22273420
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 19 Vol. 104; ISSN APPLAB; ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
NANOSTRUCTURES
PHOTOELECTRIC EMISSION
PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY
PHOTONS
PHTHALOCYANINES
PLASMONS
SURFACES
THIN FILMS
THRESHOLD ENERGY
WORK FUNCTIONS
ZINC