Origin of localized states in graphite: Indirect photoemission processes or impurities?

The electronic band structure of different types of graphite samples have been investigated in order to identify the origin of non-dispersive density of states recently reported in the literature. A systematic series of synchrotron radiation angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements on graphite single crystal, highly oriented graphite (HOPG) and epitaxial grown graphite single crystal on 6H–SiC(0 0 0 1) samples, have been carried out as well as compared with theoretical tight binding calculations. Our results indicate that these localized states are present in all the graphite-investigated samples showing the same non-dispersive character and at the same binding energies. The photoemission data taken at several photon energies demonstrate that these states are not surface states nor due to indirect photoemission processes. It seems that they are closely related to the level of impurities present in the studied samples.