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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 67: Focus Session: Unoccupied States by Inverse Photoemission II

O 67.8: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 11. März 2026, 17:00–17:15, WILL/A317

The role of light polarization in inverse photoemission — •Marcel Holtmann, Pascal J. Grenz, and Markus Donath — Physikalisches Institut, Münster University, Germany

In inverse photoemission (IPE), electrons are directed onto a surface and the light emitted during radiative transitions into unoccupied states is detected. By detecting the emitted photons as a function of the kinetic energy of the electrons impinging at a defined angle of incidence, the dispersion of conduction-band states can be traced. We focus on the role of light polarization in IPE and how the simultaneous detection of photons with multiple detectors provides additional symmetry information.
In the spirit of "50 years of IPE", this talk aims to give an overview of this aspect of IPE analysis. Building on early work from the 1980s [1,2], we will present measurements of the AgTe/Ag(111) surface alloy. The polarization contrast allows us to identify the orbital character of spin-dependent unoccupied states. We will also discuss the recent improvement of our setup, in which a polarizing mirror was added to the photon detector [3], enabling us to select the detected light polarization.

[1] M. Donath et al., Solid State Commun. 60, 237 (1986)
[2] T. Fauster et al., Phys. Rev. B 40, 7981 (1989)
[3] P. J. Grenz et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 96, 033905 (2025)

Keywords: Inverse Photoemission; Polarization; AgTe; Photon Detection; Spectroscopy