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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 60: Focus Session: Unoccupied States by Inverse Photoemission I

O 60.2: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 11. März 2026, 11:00–11:15, WILL/A317

Inverse photoemission - just the inverse of photoemission? — •Markus Donath — University of Münster, Germany

Photoemission (PE) is known as the most powerful experimental technique to investigate the occupied energy levels of electrons in matter. The photoelectric effect, where electrons are detected after excitation with light, was first observed by H. Hertz and W. Hallwachs in 1887/1888. The reverse effect, the emission of Bremsstrahlung after irradiation of electrons was discovered by W.C. Röntgen in 1895. Bremsstrahlung spectroscopy provides access to unoccupied states. The first Bremsstrahlung spectroscopy experiment in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) range was performed by V. Dose fifty years ago [1]. In 1980, J.B. Pendry named this technique inverse photoemission (IPE) [2]. By using light in the VUV spectral range, PE and IPE became valuable complementary tools for studying the energy vs momentum dispersion of electron states below and above the Fermi level, even with spin resolution. After some historical remarks, this talk will review strengths and challenges as well as future perspectives of IPE.

[1] V. Dose, Appl. Phys. 14, 117 (1977).

[2] J.B. Pendry, Phys. Rev. Lett. 45, 1356 (1980).

Keywords: inverse photoemission; electronic structure