Polaronic behavior of photoelectron spectra of Fe3O4 revealed by both hard X-ray and extremely low energy photons

TL;DR

This study uses advanced photoelectron spectroscopy to investigate Fe3O4's electronic structure, revealing polaronic effects influencing its temperature-dependent conductivity and spectral features near the Fermi level.

Contribution

It demonstrates the temperature-dependent polaronic behavior in Fe3O4's photoelectron spectra using both hard X-ray and low-energy photons, providing new insights into its electronic properties.

Findings

Fermi level intensity increases with temperature above the Verwey transition

Spectral behavior near EF explained by polaron model

Bulk-sensitive spectroscopy confirms polaronic effects in Fe3O4

Abstract

Hard X-ray and extremely low energy bulk-sensitive photoelectron spectroscopy has been performed in the temperature range of 100-330 K for Fe3O4. In the high temperature phase just above the Verwey transition, the intensity at the Fermi level (EF) is still negligible, but it increases gradually with further increasing the temperature (250 K, 330 K) in consistence with the temperature dependence of the conductivity. The spectral behaviors near EF with temperature are well explained by the model, which takes the polaron effect into account.