Spin‐Resolved PES and IPES Investigation of the Graphene/Ni(111) Interface

• Published in: physica status solidi (b) Vol. 255; no. 3
• Main Authors: S. Jagadeesh, Madan, Calloni, Alberto, Bussetti, Gianlorenzo, Duò, Lamberto, Ciccacci, Franco
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.03.2018
• Subjects: graphene; inverse photoemission; spin‐resolved photoemission
• ISSN: 0370-1972; 1521-3951
• DOI: 10.1002/pssb.201700415

The chemically inert graphene/Ni(111) interface represents an intriguing system where a magnetic sample is protected by a single layer of carbon atoms, which passivates the surface. Despite the fact that it has been the subject matter of many researches, inverse photoemission (IPES) data are still missing as well as a comparison with spin‐resolved photoemission (SR‐PES) spectra. Here, for the sake of completeness, we present both in situ SR‐PES and SR‐IPES spectra. We observe that normal emission and normal incidence data are dominated by the Ni features while characteristic signals from carbon arise at higher angles. The spin polarization of Ni bands, investigated here along the Γ¯‐M¯ direction of the surface Brillouin zone, is only slightly affected by the graphene overlayer in both filled and empty states. The authors investigated the electronic and magnetic structure of the Gr/Ni(111) system. Here, they observe a clear spin‐polarization of the inverse photoemission signal from Ni empty electronic states, both on the substrate (bottom spectra) and the Gr/Ni system (top spectra, showing a Gr‐related feature at about 3 eV), thus demonstrating that the Gr addition preserves the magnetic character of the substrate.