Fermi surface studies using angle-resolved photoemission

The Fermi surface plays an important role in determining many low energy properties of metallic systems (transport, magnetism, energy transfer, and cohesion and crystal structure, for example). The Fermi surfaces of many elemental metals were determined with exquisite precision several decades ago using a variety of techniques, notably de Haas-van Alphen and related measurements. Despite the importance of these successes and their major impact on the development of metal physics, the techniques have serious limitations (the requirement of bulk samples of very high crystalline perfection and the necessity of using of low temperature) that render them inapplicable to many interesting systems. In this paper, the application of angle-resolved photoemission to remedy some of these limitations will be reviewed. This technique cannot achieve the precision of traditional techniques, but it is applicable equally to bulk, surface, and thin film systems of only moderate perfection and over a relatively large range of temperatures. Discussion is focused on the Fermi surfaces (more accurately Fermi contours) of two-dimensional states localized at metal surfaces.