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Volume 13: Pages 325-331, 2000

Dielectric Hysteresis in van der Waals Solids Due to the Formation of Negative Ion Resonances

M. Michaud, P. Cloutier, L. Sanche

Groupe du CRM en Sciences des Radiations, Département de Médecine Nucléaire et de Radiobiologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec J1H 5N4 Canada

Electron resonances (i.e., transient anions) in the gas phase are usually found in both elastic and inelastic electron‐scattering channels of atoms and molecules, whereas their solid‐phase counterparts are observed exclusively in inelastic channels. Fano and collaborators originally attributed this effect to a dielectric hysteresis phenomenon, i.e., the electronic polarization of the surrounding medium induced by the formation of a transient anion in a solid causes a small displacement of the atoms or molecules from their lattice positions, which do not have time to relax during autoionization of the anion. Thus, the resulting multiphonon excitations replace the elastic decay channel. Experimental and theoretical evidence of this phenomenon is given for electron‐resonance scattering from several crystalline van der Waals solids.

Keywords: electron resonances, localized single‐particle electronic states, electronphonon interaction, multiphonon excitation, electronic polarization, van der Waals solids

Received: May 1, 2000; Published online: December 15, 2008