Time-of-flight photoemission electron microscopy – a new way to chemical surface analysis

The time structure of synchrotron radiation at BESSY I (Berlin) was utilised to operate a photoemission electron microscope in the time-of-flight mode. The electrons that are emitted from the sample surface with different energies are dispersed in a drift tube subsequent to the imaging optics. Two ways of fast image detection have been explored, a fast gated intensified CCD camera (800 ps gate time) and a special counting electronics in combination with a 3D (x,y,t)-resolving delay line detector (time resolution<500 ps). The latter device has a lateral resolution of about 50 μm in the image plane being equivalent to 1000 pixels along the image diagonal. An energy resolution of 400 meV has been achieved. The future potential of time-resolving photoemission microscopy is discussed.