Fermi Surface and Electron Correlation Effects of Ferromagnetic Iron

TL;DR

This study investigates the electronic structure of ferromagnetic iron using photoemission, revealing good agreement with theory but also significant correlation effects such as bandwidth reduction and mass enhancement.

Contribution

It provides detailed experimental analysis of correlation effects in ferromagnetic iron's electronic structure, highlighting bandwidth reduction and quasiparticle renormalization.

Findings

Good agreement of Fermi surface with calculations

Bandwidth reduction of ~30% for shallow bands

Mass enhancement near the Fermi level

Abstract

The electronic band structure of bulk ferromagnetic iron is explored by angle-resolved photoemission for electron correlation effects. Fermi surface cross-sections as well as band maps are contrasted with density functional calculations. The Fermi vectors and band parameters obtained from photoemission and their prediction from band theory are analyzed in detail. Generally good agreement is found for the Fermi surface. A bandwidth reduction for shallow bands of ~ 30 % is observed. Additional strong quasiparticle renormalization effects are found near the Fermi level, leading to a considerable mass enhancement. The role of electronic correlation effects and the electronic coupling to magnetic excitations is discussed in view of the experimental results.