Ultrafast non-equilibrium dynamics offer a route to study the microscopic interactions that govern macroscopic behavior. In particular, photo-induced phase transitions (PIPTs) in solids provide a test case for how forces, and the resulting atomic motion along a reaction coordinate, originate from a non-equilibrium population of excited electronic states. Utilizing femtosecond photoemission we obtain access to the transient electronic structure during an ultrafast PIPT in a model system: indium nanowires on a silicon(111) surface. We uncover a detailed reaction pathway, allowing a direct comparison with the dynamics predicted by ab initio simulations. This further reveals the crucial role played by localized photo-holes in shaping the potential energy landscape, and enables a combined momentum and real space description of PIPTs, including the ultrafast formation of chemical bonds.Artists view of the excitation and formation of chemical bonds along Indium nanowires (red balls) on a Silicon(111) surface during the ultrafast photoinduced phase transition between the 8x2 and 4x1 structures. This real space view of atoms and bonds is complemented by detailed measurememets of the electronic structure of electrons in their "momentum space" exhibiting the evolution of the band stuctrue providing a complete picture of the phase transition. 3 In/Si(111) undergoes a transition from an insulating (8x2) to a metallic (4x1) structure above 130 K (27,28), r-space schematics of which are shown in Fig. 1, C and D, respectively. The bonding motif in the insulating phase (Fig. 1C) consists of distorted hexagons, while in the conducting phase the In atoms rearrange into zig-zagging chains (Fig. 1 D).The k-space band structures of the two phases calculated within the GW approximation are given below the relevant structures in Fig. 1, E and F. In contrast to the (4x1) phase which has three metallic bands (m1 -m3) that cross EF (17), the (8x2) phase is gapped at the Γ 8x2 and X 8x2 points. Upon increasing the temperature across the (8x2) to (4x1) phase transition, the states initially lying far above EF at Γ 8x2 shift down in energy and eventually cross EF, forming the metallic m1 band of the (4x1) phase. Concurrently the energy gap in the m2 and m3 bands at the X 8x2 point closes, while at the same time the bands shift apart in momentum along the kx direction (23). We note that the three metallic bands predicted from the calculation in the (4x1) phase are clearly observed in Fig. 1B. The Fermi surface of the (4x1) phase in Fig. 1G shows the momentum cut along which our data are obtained.
We present angle-resolved photoemission data from Cu(111). Using a focused 6 eV continuous-wave laser for photoexcitation, we achieve a high effective momentum resolution, enabling detection of the Rashba spin splitting in the Shockley surface state on Cu(111). The magnitude of the spin splitting of k ∼ 0.006Å −1 is surprisingly large and exceeds values predicted for the analogous surface state on Ag(111), but is reproduced by first-principles calculations. We further resolve a kink in the dispersion, which we attribute to electron-phonon coupling.
Time-and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (trARPES) employing a 500 kHz extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) light source operating at 21.7 eV probe photon energy is reported. Based on a high-power ytterbium laser, optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA), and ultraviolet-driven high-harmonic generation, the light source produces an isolated high-harmonic with 110 meV bandwidth and a flux of more than 10 11 photons/second on the sample. Combined with a stateof-the-art ARPES chamber, this table-top experiment allows high-repetition rate pump-probe experiments of electron dynamics in occupied and normally unoccupied (excited) states in the entire Brillouin zone and with a temporal system response function below 40 fs. function A(k,ω) and a matrix element between the initial and final state |M k if | 2 ; here k and ω denote the electron's wavevector and angular frequency, respectively. Many-body effects are encoded in the spectral function A(k,ω) and manifest themselves in renormalization of the bare electronic bands and in the observed lineshape 1 . In a trARPES experiment, the distribution I(k,ω) is collected for a series of delays (τ ) between pump and probe pulses: after perturbation, the population distribution f(k,ω,τ ) evolves towards a quasi-thermal distribution and energetically relaxes on femto-to picosecond timescales 2 . During relaxation, the concomitant many-body interactions affect the transient spectral function A(k,ω,τ ) and even the photoemission matrix elements might change, if the final state's orbital symmetry is altered 3 . trARPES accesses at once the population dynamics, the evolution of the spectral function and the evolution of matrix elements. trARPES has found increasingly successful applications in the past few decades 4-6 : among many examples, trARPES was used to study photo-induced phase transitions 7-11 and to observe electronic states above the Fermi level, unoccupied under equilibrium conditions [12][13][14][15][16] . Energy conservation in the photoemission processes imposes that a femtosecond light source for trARPES must possess a photon energy ω ph exceeding the work function Φ, which in most materials lies in the range between 4 to 6 eV. Ultraviolet femtosecond light sources are thus required for these experiments.The conservation of the electrons' in-plane momentum ( k ) in the photoemission process allows reciprocal space resolution. The advantage of a probe with high photon energy is Journal of Electron Spectroscopy and Related Phenomena 200, 15 (2015). 79 SPECS Surface Nano Analysis GmbH, product spectrometer PHOIBOS TM 150 (2013), see
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