The electronic excitation spectra of undoped, and potassium as well as calcium doped phenantrene-type hydrocarbons have been investigated using electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) in transmission. In the undoped materials, the lowest energy exci
tations are excitons with a relatively high binding energy. These excitons also are rather localized as revealed by their vanishing dispersion. Upon doping, new low energy excitation features appear in the former gaps of the materials under investigation. In K$_3$picene and K$_3$chrysene they are characterized by a negative dispersion while in Ca$_3$picene they are dispersionless.
Inelastic electron scattering is applied to investigate the impact of potassium intercalation on the charge carrier plasmon energy and dispersion in the charge-density wave (CDW) bearing compound 2H-tantalum-diselenide. We observe an unususal doping
dependence of the plasmon dispersion, which even changes sign upon alkali addition. In contrast to the continous energy shift of the plasmon position upon doping at lowest momentum transfer, its dispersion changes in a rather discontinuous manner. We argue that the observed dynamics can only be explained in a picture, where complex phenomena are taken into account including the suppression of the CDW upon doping as well as the interplay of the CDW and the plasma resonance.
