Electronic structure of B 2pσ and pπ states in MgB2, AlB2, and ZrB2 single crystals

The effect of electron correlation (EC) on the electronic structure in MgB 2 , AlB 2 , and ZrB 2 , is studied by examining the partial density of states (PDOS) of B 2pσ and pπ orbitals using the polarization dependence of x-ray emission and absorption spectra. The discrepancies between observed and calculated PDOS's cannot be attributed to EC effects. The present results suggest that the EC effect is less than the experimental error (∼0.2 eV), which indirectly supports a scenario that electron-phonon interaction plays an essential role in the occurrence of superconductivity.