Time-resolved soft X-ray core-level photoemission spectroscopy at 880 °C using the pulsed laser and synchrotron radiation and the pulse heating current

We developed a time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy system for tracking the temporal variation in an electronic state of a heated sample. Our pump-probe method used laser and synchrotron radiation pulses on a silicon surface that was heated by a synchronized pulse current that did not interfere with the measurements. The transient surface photovoltage effect on the Si 2p core spectra was measured from room temperature to 880 degrees C and was found to be consistent with the thermal carrier distributions in silicon crystals at the corresponding temperatures. This versatile technique may have applications studying molecular dynamics on high temperature surfaces such as in catalytic reactions.