Multiatom resonant photoemission

Abstract

We present experimental and theoretical results related to multiatom resonant photoemission, in which the photoelectron intensity from a core level on one atom is influenced by a core-level absorption resonance on another. We point out that some prior experimental data has been strongly influenced by detector nonlinearity and that the effects seen in new corrected data are smaller and of different form. Corrected data are found to be well described by an extension of resonant photoemission theory to the interatomic case, provided that interactions beyond the usual second-order Kramers-Heisenberg treatment are included. This microscopic theory is also found to simplify under certain conditions so as to yield results equivalent to a classical x-ray optical approach, with the latter providing an alternative, although less detailed and general, physical picture of these effects. The potential utility of these effects as near-neighbor probes, as well as their implications for x-ray emission and x-ray scattering experiments, are also discussed.