Optical and Surface Characterization of Alkali-Antimonide Photocathodes

Alkali-antimonides, characterized by high quantum efficiency and low mean transverse energy in visible light, are excellent electron sources to drive x-ray free electron lasers, electron cooling and ultrafast electron diffraction applications etc. Existing studies of alkali-antimonides have focused on quantum efficiency and emittance, but information is lacking on the fundamental aspects of the electronic structure, such as the energy gap of the semiconductor and the density of defects as well as the overall nano-structure of the materials. We are, therefore, conducting photoconductivity measurements to measure fundamental semiconductor properties as well as using atomic force microscope (AFM) and kelvin probe force microscope (KPFM) to measure the nanostructure variations in structure and surface potential.
Proceedings of the 12th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2021, Campinas, SP, Brazil