The MgO(001) surface studied by helium diffraction

The diffraction of He atoms at thermal energy (~64 meV) from the (001) cleavage plane of MgO was studied. A hard-wall intensity analysis of in-plane spectra obtained at near normal incident angles and in the main azimuthal planes yields the corrugation function, which is simply sinusoidal in both unit-cell directions with a total corrugation amplitude of 0.47 ± 0.02 Å. This value is larger than the one previously reported by K.H. Rieder. A more detailed study of the surface is in progress.