Optical Density of States Ultraviolet Photoelectric Spectroscopy.

Abstract

The use of ultraviolet photoemission to determine the density of valence and conduction states is reviewed. Two approaches are recognized. In one, the photoemission as well as other studies are used to locate experimentally a limited number of features of the band structure. Once these are fixed, band structure calculations could be carried out throughout the zone and checked against other features of the photoemission data. If the agreement is sufficiently good, the density of states is then calculated from the band structure. The second method depends only on experimental data. Using this approach, features of the density of states are determined directly by the photoemission experiment without recourse to band calculations. In cases where bands are wide and k clearly provides an empirically important optical selection rule, this is possible only for portions of the bands which are relatively flat. Successful determinations of this type are cited for PbTe, and GaAs. In metals with narrow d bands such as Cu, it has been found empirically that one may explain fairly well the experimental energy distribution curves in terms of transitions between a density of initial and final states (the optical density of states, ODS) requiring only conservation of energy. The ODS determined by such ultraviolet photoemission studies have more strong detailed structure than the density of states determined by any other experimental method. Studies on a large number of materials indicate that the position in energy of this structure correlates rather well with the position in energy of structure in the calculated density of states. It is suggested, following the very recent theoretical work of Doniach, that k conservation becomes less important (and nondirect transitions more important) as the mass of the hole becomes larger. This is due to the change in k of electrons in states near the Fermi level as they attempt to screen the hole left in the optical excitation process. These electrons take up the excess momentum. One would expect the k conservation selection rule to play an increasingly important role as the mass of the hole decreases. This is in agreement with experiment.