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Flynn, C.P. First, Phillip Neal 2011-05-16T21:39:55Z 2011-05-16T21:39:55Z 10000-01-01 1988 Core excitations in metals create a local change in potential that couples strongly to the sea of conduction electrons. The response of the electron liquid to this local shock is reflected in its excitation spectrum; this can be probed by various core-level spectroscopies. The research described in this thesis investigates emission spectra from outer-core excitations using two model experimental systems that should be free of complicated band structure. Emission from the np5( n +1)82 -T np6( n +1)8 outer core transitions in the heavy alkali metals K (n = 3), Rb (n = 4), and Cs (n = 5) has been examined as a function of temperature. The results are analyzed in terms of simple models to explain lineshape similarities and to extract lifetime and phonon broadening contributions. Samples were prepared by evaporation under ultra-high vacuum conditions and studied using electron beam excitation for temperatures from 15 K to 300 K. Phonon effects are found to conform well to established theories, and the lifetimes so determined for this important series of metals show clear systematics. Energetics of an emission feature associated with atoms on the free metal surfaces are also described adequately by current theories. These are the only experiments to date concerning emission from Rb or Cs. Rare gas impurities in alkali metal host lattices, when studied previously by absorption metods, showed an anomalously broad and suppressed Fermi edge, in contrast to theoretical predictions. It was speculated that this threshold shape may be characteristic of conduction electron recoil from the shock of the local optical event. Analogous np5(n +1)8 --t np6 transitions in emission for Kr (n = 4) and Xe (n = 5) impurities in the alkali metals have been obtained in the present work. These show a broad lineshape near threshold, but different from that found for absorption. The observed small overlap between emission and absorption spectra firmly establishes that the bulk of the broadening seen in absorption is indeed characteristic of the electronic excitation spectrum. The form of the emission spectrum has focussed attention on local configurational effects as a possible explanation of the absorption, rather than the shake-up caused by electronic recoil. Submitted by Carolyn Mead (cmead2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-16T21:39:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 1988_first.pdf: 7631770 bytes, checksum: 92aa31fe90b922f345a8fd064f460ec8 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-16T21:39:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 1988_first.pdf: 7631770 bytes, checksum: 92aa31fe90b922f345a8fd064f460ec8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1988 Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Carolyn Mead (cmead2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-16T21:39:55Z Item is restricted indefinitely. Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:15:15-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: Thesis Thesis U of I Only 1853993 http://hdl.handle.net/2142/23902 en 1988 Phillip Neal First VUV emission heavy alkali metals rare gas impurities excitation spectrum core-level spectroscopies VUV emission from the heavy alkali metals and rare gas impurities in alkali metals Dissertation / Thesis text Physics Physics University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D.