Metals and Alloys

Abstract

The structure of the valence bands of many metals is characterized by a great complexity and contains features that can be observed experimentally only by using spectroscopic instruments with a resolving power of the order of some tenths of an electron volt. At present, however, since most electron spectrometers have a resolution of about 0.6–0.9 eV, it is not yet possible to determine the detailed structure of the valence bands of most transition metals from their electron spectra. Thus the resolution of available instruments is completely inadequate for a determination of the accurate valence band structure of transition metals in which the density of the d states is high and their bandwidth is not large. As the atomic number increases, however, the valence band broadens. For gold, for example, it is possible to determine experimentally the whole fine structure previously predicted by relativistic band calculations.