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Abstract:
We report measurements of the coverage-dependent electronic and structural properties of submonolayer Li films, grown on Be(0001). We observe a structural phase transition from a disordered state at low coverages to an ordered hexagonally close-packed structure at high coverages. This structural transition is accompanied by a nonmetal-to-metal transition in the overlayer. The Li overlayer structure was determined using low-energy electron diffraction, while angle-resolved photoemission, inverse photoemission, and core-level spectroscopy were employed to characterize the electronic transformation. For the disordered, low-coverage phase the spectroscopies show only one Li-induced electronic state. This level is centered 3.1 eV above EF and is completely unoccupied at the lowest coverages studied. At the completion of the first Li adlayer, the overlayer band is metallic.