Nanoscale Patterns on Polar Oxide Surfaces
Mikołaj Lewandowski
Irene M. N. Groot
Zhi-Hui Qin
Tomasz Ossowski
Tomasz Pabisiak
Adam Kiejna
Anastassia Pavlovska
Shamil Shaikhutdinov
Hans-Joachim Freund
Ernst Bauer
10.1021/acs.chemmater.6b03040.s001
https://acs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Nanoscale_Patterns_on_Polar_Oxide_Surfaces/4029327
Polar ionic surfaces with bulk termination
are inherently unstable
because of their diverging electrostatic surface energy. Nevertheless,
they are frequently observed in nature, mainly because of charge neutralization
by adsorbates, but occur also under atomically clean conditions. Several
mechanisms have been invoked to explain the stability of atomically
clean polar surfaces, but the frequently observed periodic nanoscale
pattern formation has not yet been explained. Here we propose that
long-range interactions between alternating electropositive and electronegative
regions of different surface terminations minimize the electrostatic
energy of the surface and thus stabilize the nanoscale pattern. This
is illustrated using the example of polar Fe oxide surfaces by combining
scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy results with results
from density functional theory-based calculations and dipole–dipole
interaction models.
2016-09-28 00:00:00
electronegative regions
Polar Oxide Surfaces Polar
charge neutralization
bulk termination
surface energy
nanoscale pattern formation
Fe oxide surfaces
theory-based calculations
nanoscale pattern
Several mechanisms
surface terminations
scanning tunneling microscopy
spectroscopy results
Nanoscale Patterns