Electronic structures of narrow-band materials

This thesis investigates the electronic structures of narrow band actinide, rare earth, and transition metal materials, using the experimental techniques of photoemission (PES) and inverse photoemission (BIS) spectroscopy. Narrow band materials exhibit many interesting phenomena such as mixed-valence, heavy-fermion properties, and high temperature superconductivity. This is primarily due to the correlated narrow band electrons and their interaction with conduction or valence band electrons. The theoretical characterization of the electronic structures of a many body system is the spectral weight of the single particle Green's function. The spectral weight of narrow band electrons is determined by measuring the PES/BIS spectrum, the spectrum to remove and add electrons.;For Ce compounds, the impurity Anderson Hamiltonian can describe both the ground state properties and the 4f spectrum. In this description, the low-energy properties are determined by a low-energy scale set by the Kondo temperature, which characterizes spin fluctuations. To make a detailed test of this picture, the Ce 3d and 4f spectra are measured and analyzed using this model for Ce(Ru;The Yb 4f spectrum of YbAl;The 5f spectra of uranium materials do not resemble the Ce 4f spectra, in having much more f-weight around E;The electronic structures of the high temperature superconductors are investigated by studying Cu 3d and 2p spectra of YBa...