Relaxation of the edge atoms of a stepped Cu(410) surface

The edge atom position of the stepped Cu(410) surface has been investigated with low energy ion scattering (LEIS) using 10–20 keV H⁺. It is possible to determine the atomic position by utilizing atomic shadowing effects. The scattered particles are analysed with a time-of-flight spectrometer. This means that we can detect scattered hydrogen leaving the copper surface in the neutral state as well as in the charged state, so the influence of neutralization of the scattered particles along different outgoing trajectories is eliminated. We find an inward relaxation of the edge atoms; assuming that this relaxation takes place in the (100) plane it amounts to about 8% of the interlayer spacing.     

Diffraction of helium from a stepped surface: Cu(117) — An experimental study

The scattering of an helium nozzle beam (incident energy 21 and 63 meV) from a copper (117) stepped surface has been studied for crystal temperature ranging from 70 to 773 K. The diffraction pattern from the step array is readily seen. The influence of residual impurity on the surface is carefully discussed. Special attention has been paid to the influence of experimental factors upon peak shapes. True peak amplitudes are deduced. The peak intensities versus temperature and versus incidence angle has been measured. Extrapolation of the intensities to 0 K allows a direct comparison of the data with the prediction of a hard corrugated wall model. A corrugation profile is given which fits quite well the data. Clear evidence for resonances with bound states has been found. Three energy levels of the potential well are thus determined (5.9,4.0, 2.1 meV) which agrees with a Morse or a 3–9 potential.     

Edge atom depression on stepped Cu(410)

The position of the edge atoms of a stepped Cu(410) surface has been measured by Ion Scattering Spectroscopy using 21 keV H⁺. The edge atoms are depressed 5.0±1.5% of the copper lattice spacing, corresponding to 0.18±0.05 Å.     

The structure of a stepped copper (410) surface determined by ion scattering spectroscopy

Ion Scattering Spectroscopy applied in the multiple scattering mode is used to determine the structure of a stepped Cu(410) surface. The energy of singly scattered ions is influenced by the presence of neighbour surface atoms. This effect can be used to determine interatomic distances up to about 10Å, as is shown by the results of 8 keV Ar⁺ and 11 keV Ne⁺ scattered through θ = 50°. The edge-edge distance of the stepped copper surface appears to be in accordance with the results of LEED experiments obtained by other investigators. The experiments show a good agreement with the results of the analytical 3-atom model of Poelsema. The energy of the so-called “plateau collision” appears to depend on the effective plateau length l as measured in the plane of incidence. Lengths l between 15 and 60 Å can be determined with an accuracy of 5 Å. Results are shown for 8 and 12 keV Ar⁺, θ = 40° and 60°, and 8 keV Kr⁺ θ = 40°. The experimental dependence of the energy on lis described correctly by a phenomenological model.     

Scattering of electrons on the Cu(001) surface by Co adatoms

Excited electrons at surfaces can be scattered by adsorbate atoms or defects, which changes the energy or momentum. Such scattering processes can be studied by energy, time and angle-resolved two-photon photoelectron spectroscopy. In this article the influence of statistically distributed Co adatoms on a Cu(001) surface on the dynamics of electrons in image-potential states is investigated. Different scattering mechanisms, such as interband, intraband, and bulk scattering are identified and analyzed quantitatively. Cobalt adatoms cause mainly quasielastic scattering of electrons in image-potential states. Inelastic processes are due to interactions with electrons in the substrate and are not significantly increased by Co adatoms. The results are compared to previous experimental and theoretical work on Cu adatoms. PACS 73.20.At; 68.49.Jk; 79.60.Ht     

Reconstructed domains on a stepped W(100) surface

A model calculation is carried out for the scattering of low energy electron diffraction from reconstructed (√2 × √2)R45° domains on a stepped W(100) surface. The existence of monotonically increasing steps causes the integral order beams to split and the separation of the splitting oscillates with the incident electron energy. We show that due to the existence of an antiphase relationship among the randomly nucleated reconstructed domains, the half-order beams neither split nor oscillate with the incident electron energy. This nonsplitting of half order beams is in agreement with the observation by Debe and King (DK). We also show that the measured intensity profile of a half order beam is equal to the signal intensity profile from the individual finite size domains convoluted with the instrument response function. This gives a simple way to evaluate the reconstructed domain size quantitatively. From the angular distribution of the half-order beam intensity we deduce that the reconstructed domains are somewhat round in shape, instead of the “long strips” proposed by DK. Also, the long range inhibition (20 Å) of the reconstruction near the step edge suggested by DK does not necessarily follow from our analysis. As a matter of fact, there is evidence showing that the inhibition (if it exists at all) can be short range in nature. Our suggestion is in agreement with the observation of the reconstructed W(100) surface by Melmed, Tung, Graham and Smith using FIM technique.     

Poisoning and non-poisoning oxygen on Cu(410)

We have investigated ethene and oxygen co-adsorption on Cu(410) by high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy. We find that these two species compete for the adsorption sites and that pre-exposure to oxygen affects ethene adsorption more or less strongly depending on oxygen coverage and the kind of occupied sites. The c(2 × 2) O overlayer is inert with respect to ethene adsorption, while when some oxygen is removed by thermally induced subsurface incorporation, ethene chemisorption is restored. The latter species also adsorbs on the disordered oxygen phase formed when O(2) is dosed at low crystal temperature. Contrary to the bare surface case, most of the ethene ends up in a π-bonded configuration. Dehydrogenation occurs, too, albeit as a minority channel. The so-produced carbon reacts already at low temperature with adsorbed oxygen to yield carbon monoxide, which desorbs around 190 K.     

Diffraction from stepped surfaces: I. Reversible surfaces

In electron or atom diffraction experiments on surfaces, the angular shapes of the diffracted beams depend upon the distribution of steps over the surface. In this paper we analyze diffracted beam profiles from stepped surfaces that are reversible. A reversible surface is one in which the pair correlation function over the surface is symmetric with respect to positive and negative directions. We show that the intensity profile across a diffracted beam can be separated into a sharp central spike due to the limit of the correlation function at large separation plus wings or shoulders due to the finite extent of the step disorder. Simple functional expressions for these angular profiles are obtained by a Markov method of treating a one-dimensional geometric distribution of steps. The result explicitly displays the deep structure found for the general case. The method reduces the calculation to a simple eigenvalue problem so that even the continuously changing step distributions that occur in epitaxial growth can be treated easily. As in the general case, the resulting intensity profile is a sharp central spike plus a step-broadened term which now is a sum of Lorentzians. The widths of the Lorentzians are the logarithms of the eigenvalues of the matrix of probabilities which describe the step distribution over the surface. This matrix method, which treats the surface as a Markov chain, also points the correct way to account for correlations between surface atoms for two-dimensional distributions of steps. For a two-dimensional surface one must consider a Markov Random Field as opposed to a simple multiplication of two one-dimensional results. We compare the results of the general calculation to the Si epitaxy experiments of Gronwald and Henzler. The coverage and momentum transfer dependencies of the shapes of the calculated profiles agree with their measurements. The calculation is also applied to the RHEED measurements of Van Hove et al. during GaAs MBE. The measured intensity oscillations can be accounted for by a cyclically changing one-dimensional geometric distribution of steps among three layers in which the third-layer scattering increases with time.     

Site-selective adsorption of xenon on a stepped Ru(0001) surface

The adsorption of xenon has been studied with UV photoemission (UPS), flash desorption (TDS) and work function measurements on differently conditioned Ru(0001) surfaces at 100 K and at pressures up to 3 × 10^?5 Torr. Low energy electron diffraction (LEED) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) served to ascertain the surface perfectness. On a perfect Ru(0001) surface only one Xe adsorption state is observed, which is characterized by$\text{Xe}\text{5}\text{p}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>3</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$,$\text{1}\text{2}$ electron binding energies of 5.40 and 6.65 eV, an adsorption energy of E_ad≈ 5 kcal/mole and dipole moment of μ'_T ≈ 0.25 D. On a stepped-kinked Ru(0001) surface, the terrace-width, the step-height and step-orientation of which are well characterized with LEED, however, two coexisting xenon adsorption states are distinguishable by an unprecedented separation in$\text{Xe}\text{5}\text{p}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>3</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$,$\text{1}\text{2}$ electron binding energies of 800 meV, by their different UPS intensities and line shapes, by their difference in adsorption energy ofΔE_ad ≈ 3 kcal/mole and finally by their strongly deviating dipole moments of μ_S = 1.0 D and μ_T = 0.34 D. The two xenon states (which are also observed on a slightly sputtered surface) are identified as corresponding to xenon atoms being adsorbed at step and terrace sites, respectively. Their relative concentrations as deduced from the UPS intensities quantitatively correlate with the abundance of step and terrace sites of the ideal TLK surface structure model as derived from LEED. Furthermore, ledge-sites and kink-sites are distinguishable via E_ad. The E_ad heterogeneity on the stepped-kinked Ru(0001) surface is interpreted in terms of different coordination and/or different charge-transfer-bonding at the various surface sites. The enormous increase in Xe 5p electron binding energy of 0.8 eV for Xe atoms at step sites is interpreted as a pure surface dipole potential shift. —The observed effects suggest selective xenon adsorption as a tool for local surface structure determination.     

Ethylene adsorption on regularly stepped copper surface: C2H4 on Cu(210)

Ethylene adsorption on regularly stepped Cu(210) surface was investigated with infrared reflection–adsorption spectroscopy and temperature programmed desorption. At 90 K, π-bonded ethylene was adsorbed on Cu(210) molecularly and all species were desorbed below 160 K. There were three types of π-bonded ethylene on the surface. Recent experimental studies have suggested that ethylene is dehydrogenated on Cu(410) due to the regular step [Kravchuk et al., J. Phys. Chem. C, 113 (2009) 20881]. However, neither the formation of di-σ-bonded ethylene nor dehydrogenation occurred on Cu(210).     

Atomic structure of the Cu(410)-O surface: STM visualization of oxygen and copper atoms

The structure of the Cu(410)-O surface is studied by a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) with atomic resolution. Tunneling is accomplished for various states of the tungsten STM probe, which allows oxygen and copper atoms to be visualized separately.     

Dynamics of image-potential states on stepped Cu(001) surfaces

The dynamical properties of image-potential states on stepped Cu(117) and Cu(118) surfaces were studied by time- and angle-resolved two-photon photoelectron spectroscopy. The interaction with the step-induced potential leads to quasielastic anisotropic scattering between image-potential-state bands. In particular, resonant interband scattering from image-potential states with quantum numbers n2 to the n=1 band and quasielastic intraband scattering within the n=1 band show high efficiency. In spite of the higher step density of Cu(117), resonant scattering is about four times larger on Cu(118). This distinction is attributed to the different step distributions of the two surfaces and to the concomitant correlation of the step arrangement on short- and long-range scales, which has been studied by scanning tunneling microscopy. Details of the surface band structure lead to different boundary conditions and may weakly affect scattering probabilities. PACS 73.20.At; 79.60.Bm; 79.60.Dp; 79.60.Ht     

Inelastic scattering of He atoms from a Cu(110) surface

A He beam has been used to measure inelastic scattering from a Cu(110) surface. The scattering was a result of predominantly single phonon events and both energy gain and loss processes were observed. This was in contrast to Cu(001) where only energy loss was observed. For Cu(110), aligned in the [001] azimuth, partial dispersion relations have been measured which meant that phonons with ΔQ values up to the zone boundary value have not been detected under the present experimental conditions. The elastic incoherent component varied with azimuthal angle for Cu(110).