Lifetime Widths of Surface States on Magnetic Lanthanide Metals

Abstract

Low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy is used to study electronic structure and dynamics of d-like surface states of trivalent lanthanide metals from La to Lu. The magnetic exchange splitting of these states is found to scale with the 4f spin multiplied by an effective exchange-coupling constant that increases with 4f occupancy in an approximately linear way. The dynamics of the surfaces states, as revealed by the lifetime width, is dominated by electron-phonon scattering in the occupied region and by electron-magnon scattering in the unoccupied region, respectively.