Photoemission on quasi-one-dimensional solids: Peierls, Luttinger & Co

Abstract

The article reviews the key issues associated with many-body effectsin low-dimensional materials accessible by angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES). Peierls instabilities driven electronically by the Fermi surface topology lead to bandbackfolding and opening of energy gaps. Precursor fluctuations and altered spectral weight resulting from superimposed potentials become detectable, and lowtemperature gap spectra can be studied in detail. ARPES also allows to search for theoretically predicted spin-charge separation in quasi-one-dimensional systems which results from electron-electron interaction. Such data can be analyzed in terms of a 1D-Hubbard model. Some materials show a more complex behavior due to the simultaneous interaction between spin, charge, and lattice degrees of freedom. Examples of recent and ongoing research which elucidate these phenomena are discussed. © 2007 Springer.