Electron-Phonon Coupling Constant of Metallic Overlayers from Specular He-Atom Scattering

Abstract

He atom scattering has been shown to be a sensitive probe of electron-phonon interaction properties at surfaces. Here it is shown that measurements of the thermal attenuation of the specular He atom diffraction peak (the Debye-Waller effect) can determine the electron-phonon coupling constant $\lambda$ for ultrathin films of metal overlayers on various close-packed metal substrates. Values of $\lambda$ obtained for single and multiple monolayers of alkali metals, and for Pb layers on Cu(111), extrapolated to large thicknesses, agree favorably with known bulk values. This demonstrates that He atom scattering can measure the electron-phonon coupling strength as a function of film thickness on a layer-by-layer basis.

arXiv comment21 pages, 6 figures, 1 table

References in corpus (2)

• Electron-Phonon Coupling and Surface Debye Temperature of Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$(111) from Helium Atom Scattering
• The electron-phonon coupling strength at metal surfaces directly determined from the Helium atom scattering Debye-Waller factor

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Origin of the Electron-Phonon Interaction of Topological Semimetal Surfaces Measured with Helium Atom Scattering
• The Electron-Phonon Coupling Constant for Single-Layer Graphene on Metal Substrates Determined from He Atom Scattering
• THz Surface Modes and Electron-Phonon Coupling in Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$(111)
• The Electron-Phonon Interaction of Low-Dimensional and Multi-Dimensional Materials from He Atom Scattering