Photoemission Studies of the Electronic Structure of Transition Metals

Abstract

New photoemission studies of the optical densities of states of several transition metals (nickel, cobalt, iron, manganese, and chromium) and copper are reported. Experimental results are compared with theoretical one‐electron energy‐band densities of states. The principal results of these studies are: (1) New structure is observed which shows encouraging agreement with magnetic one‐electron energy‐band calculations, and (2) the large anomalous peaks in ferromagnetic Ni, Co, and Fe about 5 eV below the Fermi level which were previously reported by others have been found to be due to spurious surface effects. The two largest peaks observed in the optical densities of states of ferromagnetic Ni and Fe and anti‐ferromagnetic Cr agree within 0.15 eV, respectively, with the two largest peaks in calculated magnetic energy‐band densities of states for each of these metals.