Wide-range photoabsorption cross-sections of simple metals: large basis-set OPW calculations for sodium

Photoabsorption cross-sections of simple metals are formulated through a solid-state band theory based on the orthogonalized-plane-wave (OPW) method in Slater's local-exchange approximation, where interband transitions of core and conduction electrons are evaluated up to the soft x-ray regime by using large basis sets. The photoabsorption cross-sections of a sodium crystal are computed for a wide photon energy range from 3 to 1800 eV. It is found that the numerical results reproduce the existing x-ray databases fairly well for energies above the L2,3-edge (31 eV), verifying a consistency between solid-state and atomic models for inner-shell photoabsorption; additional oscillatory structures in the present spectra manifest solid-state effects. Our computed results in the vacuum ultraviolet regime (6-30 eV) are also in better agreement with experimental data compared to earlier theories, although some discrepancies remain in the range of 20-30 eV. The influence of the core eigenvalues on the absorption spectra is examined.