Photoelectron spectroscopy and the dipole approximation
- Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV (United States); and others
Photoelectron spectroscopy is a powerful technique because it directly probes, via the measurement of photoelectron kinetic energies, orbital and band structure in valence and core levels in a wide variety of samples. The technique becomes even more powerful when it is performed in an angle-resolved mode, where photoelectrons are distinguished not only by their kinetic energy, but by their direction of emission as well. Determining the probability of electron ejection as a function of angle probes the different quantum-mechanical channels available to a photoemission process, because it is sensitive to phase differences among the channels. As a result, angle-resolved photoemission has been used successfully for many years to provide stringent tests of the understanding of basic physical processes underlying gas-phase and solid-state interactions with radiation. One mainstay in the application of angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy is the well-known electric-dipole approximation for photon interactions. In this simplification, all higher-order terms, such as those due to electric-quadrupole and magnetic-dipole interactions, are neglected. As the photon energy increases, however, effects beyond the dipole approximation become important. To best determine the range of validity of the dipole approximation, photoemission measurements on a simple atomic system, neon, where extra-atomic effects cannot play a role, were performed at BL 8.0. The measurements show that deviations from {open_quotes}dipole{close_quotes} expectations in angle-resolved valence photoemission are observable for photon energies down to at least 0.25 keV, and are quite significant at energies around 1 keV. From these results, it is clear that non-dipole angular-distribution effects may need to be considered in any application of angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy that uses x-ray photons of energies as low as a few hundred eV.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 603580
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL--39981; ON: DE97007345
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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