Quantum photoyield of diamond(111)—A stable negative-affinity emitter

TLDR

Recent calculations predict occupied intrinsic surface states in the diamond (111) gap, but none were observed. The unreconstructed diamond (111) surface exhibits a negative electron affinity and a stable quantum yield that rises linearly from ~5.5 eV to ~20 % at 9 eV, reaching 40–70 % for 13–35 eV, with secondary electrons peaking at ~0.5 eV above the valence band maximum, while the measured photothreshold is significantly lower than theoretical predictions. No additional metadata.

Abstract

Quantum photoyield and secondary-electron distributions are presented for an unreconstructed diamond (111) surface (type-$\mathrm{II}b$, gem-quality blue-white semiconductor). This chemically inert surface exhibits a negative electron affinity, resulting in a stable quantum yield that increases linearly from photothreshold (5.5 eV) to \ensuremath{\sim}20% at 9 eV, with a very large yield of \ensuremath{\sim}40%-70% for $13\ensuremath{\lesssim}h\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\lesssim}35$ eV. For all photon energies, secondary-electron energy distributions show a dominant \ensuremath{\sim}0.5-eV-wide emission peak at the conduction-band minimum (${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{1}^{min}=5.50\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.05$ eV above the valence-band maximum ${{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}_{25}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$). In contrast with recent self-consistent calculations [J. Ihm, S. G. Louie, and M. L. Cohen, Phys. Rev. B 17, 769 (1978)] no occupied intrinsic surface states with ionization energies in the fundamental gap (the Fermi level was 1 eV above ${{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}_{25}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$) were observed. Likewise, the measured photothreshold (${E}_{\mathrm{vac}}\ensuremath{-}{{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}_{25}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$) is significantly smaller than calculated (7.0\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.7 eV).