EELS and XPS investigations of Ba2Cu3O4Cl2

Electron energy-loss spectroscopy in transmission and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy have been applied to investigate single crystalline Ba₂Cu₃O₄Cl₂ to obtain the loss-function along the high symmetry directions of the cuprate plane, the Cu2p and O1s excitation edges, and to study the valence band and the core level electronic structure. The lossfunction shows a gap of 1.65eV, practically dispersionless structures between 2 and 8eV, and a volume plasmon located at 25eV. The dielectric function is derived. The excitation edges are a measure for the number of holes located in the Cu like or O like states parallel or perpendicular to the Cu₃O₄ planes. The Cu₂p_3/2 XPS shows three features in the main line and a satellite structure due to two independent copper sites and indicating a strong 3d electron correlation. By interpreting forward scattering features the valence band structure can be assigned to its atomic origin.