High resolution core level photoemission of clean and adsorbate covered metal surfaces

A brief review is given of some fundamental aspects of high-resolution core-level photoemission and of its application to studies of pure and adsorbate covered metal surfaces. We first give a short description of the basic theory and then turn to a number of examples. The first group of examples is aimed at demonstrating the use of core-level binding energy shifts for deriving the surface and interface geometrical structure whereas the second group deals with the core-level lineshape and, in particular, the influence of vibrational and other excitations.