Angle-resolved photoemission study of Ag nanofilms grown on fcc transition-metal (111) substrates

A comparative study of the electronic structures of Ag nanofilms on the pseudomorphic metastable fee Fe(111) and bulk-like fee Co(111) substrates has been carried out to investigate their quantized electronic structures. The photoemission spectra of both Ag nanofilms exhibit the fine structures derived from the quantized sates of Ag sp valence electron. The nanofilm-thickness dependences of the binding energy of the quantized states are reproduced by the calculated results based on the phase accumulation model. From the angle-resolved photoemission measurements, the effective masses of the quantized electronic states along the direction parallel to the nanofilm surface were directly determined. We discuss the electronic hybridization effect between quantized states in Ag nanofilm and 3d-derived electronic states in transition-metal substrates. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.