Superstructures of oxygen and sulphur on a Fe(110) surface via fast atom diffraction

Abstract

Fast helium atoms and hydrogen molecules with energies from 400 eV up to several keV are grazingly scattered from a Fe͑110͒ surface covered by oxygen and sulphur atoms forming c͑2 ϫ 2͒ and c͑1 ϫ 3͒ superstructures, respectively. For scattering along low-index azimuthal directions we observe defined diffraction patterns in the angular distributions for scattered projectiles. From the evaluation of those diffraction patterns we derive the widths of low-indexed axial channels, the corrugation of the interaction potential across these channels, and the normal positions of adsorbed atoms above the Fe lattice. Our analysis is based on semiclassical models using hard-wall approximation as well as individual potentials for the interaction of projectiles with the surface. By comparing the results of different models, we discuss the robustness of the information on the geometrical structure of the surfaces.

Rumpling of LiF(001) surface from fast atom diffraction

“…This feature was demonstrated in studies on insulator [5,6] and semiconductor [48,49] surfaces with direct band gap. Recent work demonstrates that such a regime is also met for scattering from clean [50,51] and adsorbate covered [52,53] metal surfaces, as well as thin films on metal substrates [54].…”

Quantitative structure determination using grazing scattering of fast atoms: Oxygen-induced missing-row reconstruction of Mo(112)

“…Therefore, modifications of the surface can be neglected [13,14]. Among these techniques, especially fast atom diffraction (FAD) [11,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] with de Broglie wavelengths of some 0.001Å gained considerable interest and motivated numerous studies with respect to FADs phenomenological description [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] and utilization for epitaxial growth monitoring [37,38] as well as qualitative and quantitative structure determination [19][20][21]33,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45].…”

Fast atom diffraction for grazing scattering of Ne atoms from a LiF(001) surface

“…In particular, due to the high sensitivity to the projectile-surface interaction [3,[5][6][7]10], fast atom diffraction is a powerful tool to probe surface potentials, opening the way for the development of an accurate surface analytical technique [11,12].…”