Experimental Study of Conduction Band Structure of Some n-Alkanes and Polyethylene by Means of Low Energy Electron Scattering and Photoelectron Spectroscopy

Abstract

Secondary electron emission (SEE) measurernent was used to investigate the conduction band structures of n-C 28 H 58 , n-C 36 H 74 , n-C 44 H 90 and polyethylene, and ultraviolct photoelectron spectra of n-C 28 H 58 and n-C 36 H 74 were measured. Several structures, whose kinetic energy positions were independent of the energies of incident sources, were observed in the both spectra. It was found that SEE spectra of all compounds were almost similar with each other, and corresponded well with the photoelectron spectra. These structures are ascribed to the high density-of-states parts of the conduction band which do not depend on the chain length. The spectra were compared with the energy distribution curve of secondary electrons estimated by the use of XPS result for the valence band and theoretical result for the conduction band of isolated chain. The energy positions of the structures of the estimated curve agree fairly well with those of observed spectrum.