Scattering by Cu adatoms between image-potential bands on Cu(001)

With the increasing resolution and sensitivity of photoelectron spectroscopy, the influence of defects is becoming more and more obvious. Scattering processes induced by adsorbate atoms can be studied by time- and angle-resolved two-photon photoemission. We have examined the dynamics of electrons in image-potential states on the Cu(001) surface for statistically distributed Cu adatoms and have identified different scattering mechanisms. Scattering of electrons from the second (n=2) to the bottom of the first (n=1) image-potential band is observed, which we attribute to inelastic interband scattering with electrons in the bulk. At energies above the bottom of the n=2 band, resonant interband scattering from the n=2 to the n=1 image-potential band is found. The rate for these processes can be determined by modeling the time-resolved measurements via optical Bloch equations of a four-level system. Comparison of the transition and decay rates reveals that the decay rate of the n=2 electrons is almost exclusively changed by additional resonant interband-scattering processes upon adsorption.