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Updated: Feb 12, 2026

Experimental Methods for Spin- and Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy Combined with Polarization-Variable Laser
Published on: June 28, 2018
Self-trapping relaxation decay investigated by time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy
Aude Lietard1, Giovanni Piani, Marc Briant
1LIDYL, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France. lionel.poisson@cea.fr.
Abstract:
The present work combines time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy on isolated species with high-level data processing to address an issue which usually pertains to materials science: the electronic relaxation dynamics towards the formation of a self-trapped exciton (STE). Such excitons are common excited states in ionic crystals, silica and rare gas matrices. They are associated with a strong local deformation of the matrix. Argon clusters were taken as a model. They are excited initially to a Wannier exciton at 14 eV and their evolution towards the formation of an STE has showed an unusual type of vibronic relaxation where the electronic excitation of the cluster decreases linearly as a function of time with a 0.59 ± 0.06 eV ps-1 rate. The decay was followed for 3.0 ps, and the STE formation occurred in ∼5.1 ± 0.7 ps.
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