IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v6y2015i1d10.1038_ncomms8358.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Surface determination through atomically resolved secondary-electron imaging

Author

Listed:
  • J. Ciston

    (National Center for Electron Microscopy, The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

  • H. G. Brown

    (School of Physics, University of Melbourne)

  • A. J. D’Alfonso

    (School of Physics, University of Melbourne)

  • P. Koirala

    (Northwestern University)

  • C. Ophus

    (National Center for Electron Microscopy, The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

  • Y. Lin

    (Northwestern University)

  • Y. Suzuki

    (Hitachi High Technologies Corp.)

  • H. Inada

    (Hitachi High Technologies Corp.)

  • Y. Zhu

    (Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory)

  • L. J. Allen

    (School of Physics, University of Melbourne)

  • L. D. Marks

    (Northwestern University)

Abstract

Unique determination of the atomic structure of technologically relevant surfaces is often limited by both a need for homogeneous crystals and ambiguity of registration between the surface and bulk. Atomically resolved secondary-electron imaging is extremely sensitive to this registration and is compatible with faceted nanomaterials, but has not been previously utilized for surface structure determination. Here we report a detailed experimental atomic-resolution secondary-electron microscopy analysis of the c(6 × 2) reconstruction on strontium titanate (001) coupled with careful simulation of secondary-electron images, density functional theory calculations and surface monolayer-sensitive aberration-corrected plan-view high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Our work reveals several unexpected findings, including an amended registry of the surface on the bulk and strontium atoms with unusual seven-fold coordination within a typically high surface coverage of square pyramidal TiO5 units. Dielectric screening is found to play a critical role in attenuating secondary-electron generation processes from valence orbitals.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Ciston & H. G. Brown & A. J. D’Alfonso & P. Koirala & C. Ophus & Y. Lin & Y. Suzuki & H. Inada & Y. Zhu & L. J. Allen & L. D. Marks, 2015. "Surface determination through atomically resolved secondary-electron imaging," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8358
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8358
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8358
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms8358?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8358. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.