Quantum photoyield of diamond(111) A stable negative-affinity emitter

Abstract

Quantum photoyield and secondary-electron distributions are presented for an unreconstructed diamond (111) surface (type-IIb, gem-quality blue-white semiconductor). This chemically inert surface exhibits a negative electron affinity, resulting in a stable quantum yield that increases linearly from photothreshold (5.5 eV) to 20% at 9 eV, with a very large yield of 40%-70% for 132h 35 eV. For all photon energies, secondary-electron energy distributions show a dominant 0.5-eV-wide emission peak at the conduction-band minimum (1min=5.50 0.05 eV above the valence-band maximum 25). In contrast with recent self-consistent calculations [J. Ihm, S. G. Louie, and M. L. Cohen, Phys. Rev. B 17, 769 (1978)] no occupied intrinsic surface states with ionization energies in the fundamental gap (the Fermi level was 1 eV above 25) were observed. Likewise, the measured photothreshold (Evac-25) is significantly smaller than calculated (7.0±0.7 eV). © 1979 The American Physical Society.