Investigation of the fivefold icosahedral AlPdMn surface by photoemission and Auger electron spectroscopy

Surface composition and electronic structure of AlPdMn quasicrystalline all oy have been studied for temperature ranging from 300 K to 873 K, The quasi crystalline nature of the in-situ prepared surface was identified by the un usual behaviour of the core level photoemission peaks of Mn as already demo nstrated by Thiel et al, Quantitative estimation of surface concentration b y measuring the peak on background ratio in Auger electron spectroscopy (AE S) do not allow to concluded to surface segregation of one element whatever the substrate temperature. Anger transitions implying valence band electro ns in the Auger relaxation reveal interesting shapes and energies modificat ions that can be correlated with the typical electronic structure of this a lloy, The appearance of strong satellite structure in the Auger and photoem ission spectrum can be attributed to bulk plasmon of the quasicrystalline p hase, Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.