Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measures the kinetic energy and emission angle of Electrons removed from a solid by light. With photon energy , sample work function , and binding energy measured downwards from the Fermi level, . The measured parallel momentum is , modulo a surface reciprocal-lattice vector. Bright ridges reveal occupied electronic band structure; their slopes give the corresponding group velocity. Extracting a Fermi energy relative to a Dirac point requires a calibrated Fermi level, not merely an unlabelled image boundary.
Inverse photoemission spectroscopy injects an Electron of known kinetic energy into a sample and detects the photon emitted as it enters an unoccupied electronic state. Conservation of energy, together with incident-angle information and an appropriate surface model, probes the unoccupied electronic band structure. Ordinary angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy instead removes Electrons from occupied states.
Different measurements reveal different aspects of electronic band structure; a convincing determination combines their constraints.
Angle-resolved photoemission. In angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, photons of known energy eject occupied Electrons. Measuring their kinetic energy and emission angle reconstructs binding energy and the component of crystal momentum parallel to the surface:
Here is the sample work function when kinetic energy is referenced to the nearby vacuum; an analyzer energy scale requires its own work-function calibration. Momentum is conserved modulo a surface reciprocal lattice vector, neglecting photon momentum. Tracking the peaks maps occupied dispersion relations and the Fermi surface. The measured intensity also contains the matrix element, the Fermi-Dirac distribution and the spectral function, so an absent bright feature does not establish an absent band. For a three-dimensional solid, the perpendicular momentum requires a final-state model. Inverse photoemission spectroscopy probes unoccupied states by injecting Electrons and detecting emitted photons.
Optical spectroscopy. Photon absorption and ellipsometry measure interband transitions, optical selection rules and the complex dielectric response. Because optical photon momentum is small on the scale of the Brillouin zone, direct transitions approximately preserve crystal momentum. Their onset constrains a direct band gap; a threshold involving a phonon can reveal an indirect band gap. Peak positions constrain energy differences between bands, but the response also depends on the joint density of states and optical matrix elements, so it does not uniquely determine every .
Quantum oscillations and cyclotron resonance. In clean samples at low temperature, the de Haas-van Alphen effect measures oscillations in magnetization and the Shubnikov-de Haas effect measures oscillations in electrical resistivity as the inverse magnetic field is varied. Their period in inverse magnetic field is , where Onsager quantization relates to an extremal Fermi-surface area perpendicular to the field:
Rotating the magnetic field maps the geometry of extremal orbits. The thermal damping determines the cyclotron effective mass,
with the appropriate magnitude for a hole orbit. Cyclotron resonance supplies the corresponding dynamical mass through . These are detailed probes near the Fermi level, rather than measurements of all occupied bands. Diffraction supplies the reciprocal lattice needed to label the measured momenta, but diffraction by itself is not a measurement of electronic dispersion.
Energy and momentum measurement. In angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, monochromatic photons illuminate a clean surface in vacuum, and an electron energy analyzer measures the outgoing kinetic energies and emission directions. Measuring both gives the occupied electronic band structure, rather than only a momentum-integrated distribution of removal energies.
Choose a common energy reference for initial and final states. Let be the initial electron energy, the Fermi energy, and the vacuum level immediately outside the sample. The binding energy is . For a direct emission event without additional losses, conservation of energy gives
Here the work function is the energy from the Fermi level to the local vacuum. The initial and final energies are total single-electron energies on the same scale, while is measured above vacuum. The diagram illustrates each interval independently.
Neglecting ultraviolet photon momentum, photoemission momentum conversion gives
where is measured from the surface normal. Parallel crystal momentum is conserved modulo a surface reciprocal lattice vector; the surface breaks perpendicular translation symmetry. A three-dimensional sample therefore generally needs a final-state model to infer perpendicular momentum. The stated two-dimensional sheet avoids that ambiguity. The kinetic energy used in this formula is the sample-vacuum value; if the analyzer and sample have different work functions, their contact potential must be included when converting the analyzer's reading, as in photoelectron binding energy reference.
Spectral information. Define and the electron spectral function by . In the sudden approximation, the basic photoemission intensity and spectral function relation is
before instrumental broadening and background are included. Here is the Fermi-Dirac distribution, and is the transition matrix element. The electron removal spectral function contains the occupied part of the spectrum. In a noninteracting band it has a delta peak at the band energy; interactions shift and broaden peaks and can add incoherent weight. Thus peak trajectories reveal dispersion, while line shapes can constrain lifetimes after resolution effects are accounted for. Dividing by known matrix and occupation factors can estimate where those factors are appreciable; intensity alone is not identical to , and a missing peak can reflect a matrix-element suppression. States well above are not accessible to ordinary low-temperature photoemission.
Figure 1.
Photoemission energy accounting and qualitative upper valence-band dispersion
. Original schematic energy diagram and illustrative nearest-neighbour graphene pi-band curves. The left panel labels every requested energy and energy interval. The right panel shows an ideal two-dimensional pi band with hopping , not a fit or reproduction of the measured graphite spectra; other occupied orbital bands are omitted. Details.
Two independent band-structure probes. First, the de Haas-van Alphen effect measures oscillatory magnetization as Landau levels cross the Fermi level when a magnetic field changes. The inverse-field frequency is
where is an extremal Fermi surface cross-sectional area perpendicular to the field. Changing field orientation maps its shape. This reveals the momentum-space geometry of occupied bands; the related Shubnikov-de Haas effect measures oscillatory resistance.
Second, absorption or reflectance spectroscopy detects interband transitions. Photon energies at absorption edges and peaks constrain the band gap and interband energy differences. For a direct band gap, negligible photon momentum selects approximately vertical transitions in the band diagram, weighted by the joint density of states and transition matrix elements. An indirect transition needs a phonon to carry the extra crystal momentum. These measurements provide evidence beyond a free-electron parabola, although an optical spectrum alone does not reconstruct every band's dispersion.
Reading the graphite spectra. For each direction, follow a moving peak through successive angles and convert each peak's own kinetic energy to ; angle is not itself proportional to momentum over this wide range. The prominent dispersing valence feature starts at roughly – binding energy near and moves towards lower binding energy as increases. Along it approaches the Fermi level at the corner, then turns back to larger binding energy on continuing beyond the corner. Along it reaches a finite minimum binding energy of roughly – near the edge midpoint and turns back; it does not reach the Fermi level there. Additional deeper peaks describe other occupied valence branches, with visibility varying across the spectra.
A useful qualitative description is the upper occupied band of the nearest-neighbour model of graphene: . It rises from at to zero at , but only to at . The schematic curve in the figure captures those two different behaviours. It is not a full multi-orbital assignment or a quantitative fit to graphite, whose deeper valence features are also visible in the supplied spectra.
Angle needed to reach the corner. The corner's parallel wavevector is
Use the near-zero binding energy of the upper valence band at that point. With the sample work function interpreted as the stated separation below vacuum,
Hence
The energy and angle readings in the PDF are approximate. If a peak at the corner were instead assigned a small binding energy , the estimate becomes
For – this gives about –, consistent with the near-Fermi feature in that angular range. Substituting the full photon energy for the kinetic energy would omit the work-function cost and underestimate the required angle.
An angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy intensity map locates occupied electronic band structure through its bright dispersing ridges. For a nearly isotropic graphene cone,
Fit straight lines to the reasonably linear portions of the ridges, avoiding the broad central crossing, and extrapolate them to locate the Dirac point energy . The PDF places the crossing near and plotted energy roughly –. On a lower branch, a representative change from approximately towards gives a slope near . Allowing for the ridge width gives about –, hence
Here .
To determine the carrier Fermi energy, identify the Fermi level from a calibrated photoemission cutoff, then measure its separation from the Dirac point:
The separation of the two Fermi crossings gives for a cut through the cone centre. This determines the doping energy relative to the Dirac point; the absolute plotted energy origin is not itself a Fermi energy.
The reproduced panel has no marked Fermi level or stated energy-zero calibration. Its upper ridges end near , but that alone does not prove that the endpoint is a Fermi cutoff. If it is the intended cutoff, the estimate is – and –. If instead the plotted numbers are binding energies measured from an unstated Fermi zero, the inferred separation would be roughly –. The supplied figure securely supports the slope estimate, but it does not distinguish these energy-reference conventions; an unconditional numerical Fermi energy requires the missing calibration.
Within the dipole and sudden approximation, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measures the electron removal spectral function multiplied by a transition matrix element. Finite instrumental energy and angular resolution convolve this product, and inelastic scattering adds a background. Peak positions reveal occupied electronic band structure, while intrinsic line widths contain lifetime information. Matrix elements depend on photon energy, polarization, orbital character, and geometry, so weak intensity does not by itself establish the absence of an electronic state. Equilibrium photoemission does not directly measure unoccupied bands far above the Fermi level.