Ordered Array of Single Adatoms with Remarkable Thermal Stability: Au/Fe3O4(001)

Abstract

Gold deposited on the Fe${}_3$O${}_4$(001) surface at room temperature was studied using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). This surface forms a ($\sqrt{2}\times \sqrt{2}$)R45${}^{\circ }$ reconstruction, where pairs of Fe and neighboring O ions are slightly displaced laterally producing undulating rows with `narrow' and `wide' hollow sites. At low coverages, single Au adatoms adsorb exclusively at the narrow sites, with no significant sintering up to annealing temperatures of 400 ${}^{\circ }$C. We propose the strong site preference to be related to charge and orbital ordering within the first subsurface layer of Fe${}_3$O${}_4$(001)-($\sqrt{2}\times \sqrt{2}$)R45${}^{\circ }$. Due to its high thermal stability, this could prove an ideal model system for probing the chemical reactivity of single atomic species.

5 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1203.5850

References in corpus (4)

• Jahn-Teller stabilization of a "polar" metal oxide surface: Fe3O4(001)
• Partial dissociation of water on Fe${}_3$O${}_4$(001): adsorbate induced charge and orbital order
• Fe3O4(001) films on Fe(001) - termination and reconstruction of iron rich surfaces
• Oxide nanotemplates for self-assembling "solid" building blocks

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