Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-quantum-condensed-matter-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2007/section-b/b2/a/solution

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy maps occupied energy bands: ultraviolet or x-ray photons eject electrons, and an energy- and angle-resolving analyzer measures and emission direction. The photoelectric effect gives the binding energy ; the parallel momentum follows from , up to surface reciprocal vectors. Clean surfaces and controlled photon energy are needed, and an occupied-state measurement alone does not map an empty conduction band.
Scanning tunneling spectroscopy instead brings a conducting tip close to a surface and modulates the bias while recording the differential tunnel current. At low temperature with a smooth tip density of states and tunnelling matrix element, probes the local density of states near energy . The signal is thermally broadened and depends on tunnelling selection, so it is not an unqualified map of the whole bulk band structure.
Bulk probes complement these surface measurements. In the de Haas-van Alphen effect, a low-temperature magnetization or torque measurement versus magnetic field gives quantum-oscillation frequencies , measuring extremal Fermi surface sections; temperature damping gives a cyclotron effective mass. The linear electronic heat capacity gives the density of low-energy excitations at the Fermi level. Optical absorption measures transition thresholds and matrix-element-weighted joint densities, rather than a unique full dispersion by itself.

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