Laser light with photon energy near the bandgap of GaAs and in LaguerreGaussian modes with different amounts of orbital angular momentum was used to produce photoemission from unstrained GaAs. The degree of electron spin polarization was measured using a micro-Mott polarimeter and found to be consistent with zero with an upper limit of ~3% for light with up to ±5ħ of orbital angular momentum. In contrast, the degree of spin polarization was 32.3±1.4% using circularly-polarized laser light at the same wavelength, which is typical for bulk GaAs photocathodes.

The main factor that determines which of the two domains form upon reconstruction of the Si(110)"16 × 2" surface has been investigated. LEED and STM images showed that the domain orientation was independent of the heating current direction used to induce the Si(110)"16 × 2" reconstruction. Reciprocal-space lattice models of the reconstruction allowed for the correct identification of the domain orientations in the LEED images and confirm that the reconstruction is 2D-chiral. It is proposed that the domain orientation upon surface reconstruction is determined by the direction of monoatomic steps present on the Si(110) plane. This is in turn determined by the direction at which the surface is polished off-axis from the (110) plane.

We measure the integrated Stokes parameters of light from Zn (4s4p)4^{3}P_{0,1}-(4s5s)5^{3}S_{1} transitions excited by a transversely polarized electron impact at energies between 7.0 and 8.5 eV. Our results for the electron-polarization-normalized linear polarization Stokes parameter P_{2}, between incident electron energies 7.0 and 7.4 eV, are consistent with zero, as required by basic angular-momentum coupling considerations and by recent theoretical calculations. They are in qualitative disagreement with previous experimental results for the P_{2} parameter.

Before a GaAs photocathode can be activated to achieve a negative electron affinity condition, the GaAs crystal must be cleaned. This is most commonly done by ohmic, radiative, or electron bombardment heating. We report a new technique to monitor the temperature of heated GaAs photocathodes by observation with a camera. The method is robust and yields the same temperatures for different GaAs samples heated using different methods in different mounting configurations.

We report high-precision measurements on the thallium fluoride 𝐽 ̃ = 1 hyperfine manifold of the B 3 1 (v = 0) state. The measurements are made by monitoring the fluorescence induced by laser excitation of a cryogenic molecular beam. This state is of special interest because it is central to an optical cycling scheme that is envisioned to play an important role in enhancing the sensitivity of the proposed CeNTREX nuclear Schiff-moment experiment presently under construction. We present a novel acousto-optic modulator coincident resonance technique which has allowed a more precise determination of the 𝐽 ̃ = 1 manifold of hyperfine level splittings. We observe Stark shifts of the 𝐽 ̃ = 1 levels and infer a permanent electric dipole moment of 2.28(7) D and -doublet splittings for the F1 = 1/2 and F1 = 3/2 manifolds of 14.4(9) MHz and 17.4(11) MHz, respectively.