New method to study the electron-phonon interaction in metals

Abstract

A new kind of point-contact spectroscopy is described: The magnitude of the transverse electron focusing signal in a Ag single crystal is measured as a function of the energy of the injected electrons. For low energies, this is a direct measurement of the energy dependence of the electron-phonon interaction strength of electrons in a specific orbit on the Fermi surface. Also for higher energies effects of the anisotropy of the electron-phonon interaction are observed.