Excitation-energy-dependent resonances in x-ray emissions under near-threshold electron excitation of the Ce 3d and 4d levels

Abstract

Soft x-ray appearance potential spectra of the 3d and 4d levels of polycrystalline cerium metal are reported in this paper. Resonant x-ray emissions are observed when the electron-excitation energy sweeps through the ionization energies of the 3d and 4d levels. The resonant x rays excited at the 3d-level onsets are considerably more intense, and are excited at a lower electron-excitation energy than the 3d-series characteristic x rays. In the neighborhood of the 4d-electron thresholds, four line-like structures extend to ∠8 eV below the 4d-electron binding energies, while two broad and more intense structures occur above the 4d onsets, with the largest one reaching a peak intensity at 12 eV above the 4d thresholds. The resonant emissions apparently arise from the decay of threshold-excited states which are bound to the inner vacancy and have core configurations nd94f3, (n=3,4). The exchange interaction between the three 4f electrons and the respective d-orbital vacancy spreads the 4d-threshold structures over a 20 eV range of excitation energies and the 3d-threshold structures over a much smaller range.