Application of Mathieu potential to calculation of photocurrent from the surface of metals

B. Zoliana , Z. Pachuau, R. K. Thapa

Science Vision 9 (4), 183-187 | Published on 31 December 2009 |

Abstract

Mathieu potential have been used for the photoemission calculations from surfaces of ferromagnetic material, Fe (iron), and semiconductor, PbSe (lead selenide). This approach gives a qualitative characterization of surface state photoemission by considering only the surface contribution from the existing bulk-band structure calculations. In this paper, we present the calculations of photocurrent from Fe and PbSe by using the Mathieu potential which defines the crystal potential. The derived initial wave function was used and variation of photocurrent only by those contribution from the surface region defined was calculated. Photocurrent was calculated for values of z0 = -2 a.u. and z0 = -8 a.u. As the width of the surface is 10 a.u. in both the cases, z0 = -2 a.u. is near the surface-vacuum interface and z0 = -8 a.u. is towards the surface-bulk interface. We found that at low photon energy range, the metal and the semiconductor under study showed similar trend in the behaviour of photocurrent at a region nearer to edge of the surface.

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