Angle-resolved photoemission and first-principles electronic structure of single-crystalline $\alpha$-uranium (001)

TL;DR

This study uses angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and first-principles calculations to analyze the electronic structure of high-quality single-crystalline alpha-uranium, confirming good agreement between experimental data and theoretical models.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed ARPES measurements on alpha-uranium and compares them with GGA-based band structure calculations, verifying the absence of surface reconstruction effects.

Findings

Good correlation between ARPES data and theoretical band dispersion

Verification of no surface reconstruction effects

High-quality ARPES data at 173 K

Abstract

Continuing the photoemission study begun with the work of Opeil et al. [Phys. Rev. B \textbf{73}, 165109 (2006)], in this paper we report results of an angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) study performed on a high-quality single-crystal $\alpha$-uranium at 173 K. The absence of surface-reconstruction effects is verified using X-ray Laue and low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) patterns. We compare the ARPES intensity map with first-principles band structure calculations using a generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and we find good correlations with the calculated dispersion of the electronic bands.