A time-of-flight-Mott apparatus for soft x-ray spin resolved photoemission on solid samples.

We describe a new spectrometer for spin resolved photoemission from solids in the soft x-ray energy range. It is mounted on the ID08 beamline at the ESRF light source and consists of a time-of-flight (TOF) energy analyzer coupled to a retarding mini-Mott spin polarimeter. It represents a valid alternative to the spin detection system already available on ID08, especially for the acquisition of wide energy regions, where the TOF technique is extremely efficient. By testing the new spectrometer on the 4f levels of Au and on CuO at the Cu L3 threshold we show that the effective Sherman function and figure of merit achieved are, respectively, Seff approximately 0.16 and eta approximately 1.3x10(-4) and that for certain experiments we obtain a significant gain in intensity with respect to the previous system.