Probing surface magnetism with ion beams

Spin Blocking in the Correlated Double-Electron Capture from Metal Surfaces

“…To understand this result, one needs to remember that only the triplet peak contains contributions of states with parallel spins. In general, the spin of the electron is conserved during capture from the surface [13][14][15][16]. It is therefore concluded that the double capture creates preferentially a singlet two-hole final state at the surface, and blocks the 3 P component, when both electrons originate from the high SDOS at E f .…”

“…During the neutralization of ions, multiple electrons are emitted from the surface or captured into the outermost shells of the ion, forming a "hollow atom" [11,12]. The spin of the electron is conserved during the charge transfer, which provides a particularly sensitive probe for surface magnetism [13][14][15][16], or spin selective ion interaction with nonmagnetic surfaces [17,18].…”