Eur. Phys. J. B (2012) 85: 324
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-30267-y

Regular Article

Plasmon satellites in valence-band photoemission spectroscopy

Ab initio study of the photon-energy dependence in semiconductors

¹ Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés, École Polytechnique, CNRS, CEA-DSM, 91128 Palaiseau, France
² Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195 WA, USA
³ Synchrotron-SOLEIL, BP 48, Saint-Aubin, 91192 Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France

^a e-mail: matteo.guzzo@polytechnique.edu

Received: 27 March 2012
Received in final form: 15 June 2012
Published online: 24 September 2012

Abstract

We present experimental data and theoretical results for valence-band satellites in semiconductors, using the prototypical example of bulk silicon. In a previous publication we introduced a new approach that allows us to describe satellites in valence photoemission spectroscopy, in good agreement with experiment. Here we give more details; we show how the the spectra change with photon energy, and how the theory explains this behaviour. We also describe how we include several effects which are important to obtain a correct comparison between theory and experiment, such as secondary electrons and photon cross sections. In particular the inclusion of extrinsic losses and their dependence on the photon energy are key to the description of the energy dependence of spectra.