Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
Photoelectron diffraction is by now a powerful technique for studying surface structures, with special capabilities for resolving chemical and magnetic states of atoms and deriving direct structural information from both forward scattering and backscattering. Fitting experiment to theory can lead to structural accuracies in the 0.03 Å range. Holographic inversions of such diffraction data also show considerable promise for deriving local three-dimensional structures around a given emitter with accuracies of 0.2-0.3 Å. Resolving the photoelectron spin in some way and using circularly polarized radiation for excitation provide added dimensions for the study of magnetic systems and chiral experimental geometries. Synchrotron radiation with the highest brightness and energy resolution, as well as variable polarization, is crucial to the full exploitation of these techniques. X-ray fluorescence holography also has promise for structural studies, but will require intense excitation sources and multichannel detection to be feasible.