Photoemission (XPS,UPS) studies of Pd-Si metallic glasses

The valence bands of glassy $\text{Pd}{}_{\mathrm{100?x}}\text{Si}{}_{\mathrm{x}}\text{(15?x?21)}$ and pure Pd were studied by XPS and UPS. The valence band spectra of the alloys show a strongly reduced density of states at the Fermi energy E_F compared to Pd. From the measured relative photoelectric cross sections for the different excitation energies we conclude that the electron states near E_F of the glassy alloys have mainly d-character. This is in good agreement with recent measurements of the low-temperature specific heat, the magnetic susceptibility and the optical reflectivity.