Transition from reconstruction towards thin film on the (110) surface of strontium titanate

Abstract

The surfaces of metal oxides often are reconstructed with a geometry and composition that is considerably different from a simple termination of the bulk. Such structures can also be viewed as ultrathin films, epitaxed on a substrate. Here, the reconstructions of the SrTiO3 (110) surface are studied combining scanning tunneling microscopy, transmission electron diffraction, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and analyzed with density functional theory calculations. While SrTiO3 (110) invariably terminates with an overlayer of titania, with increasing density its structure switches from nx1 and 2xn. At the same time the coordination of the Ti atoms changes from a network of corner-sharing tetrahedra to a double layer of edge-shared octahedra with bridging units of octahedrally coordinated strontium. This transition from the nx1 to 2xn reconstructions is a transition from a pseudomorphically stabilized tetrahedral network towards an octahedral titania thin film with stress-relief from octahedral strontia units at the surface.

References in corpus (12)

• Restoring the density-gradient expansion for exchange in solids and surfaces
• Generalized gradient approximation for solids and their surfaces
• Unveiling a two-dimensional electron gas with universal subbands at the surface of SrTiO3
• Creation and control of a two-dimensional electron liquid at the bare SrTiO3 surface
• Anisotropic two-dimensional electron gas at SrTiO3(110) protected by its native overlayer
• Atomically precise interfaces from non-stoichiometric deposition
• Evolution of the Surface Structures on SrTiO${}_3$(110) Tuned by Ti or Sr Concentration
• Water Adsorption at the Tetrahedral Titania Surface Layer of SrTiO${}_3$(110)-(4$\times$1)
• Surface Reconstructions in Molecular Beam Epitaxy of SrTiO3
• Strain-induced Defect Superstructure on the SrTiO3(110) Surface
• Reversible Transition Between Thermodynamically Stable Phases with Low Density of Oxygen Vacancies on SrTiO${}_3$(110) Surface
• Stabilizing Single Ni adatoms on a Two-dimensional Porous Titania Overlayer at the SrTiO${}_3$(110) Surface

Cited by in corpus (2)

• In-situ real-space imaging of crystal surface reconstruction dynamics via electron microscopy
• 2D Surface Phase Diagram of a Multicomponent Perovskite Oxide: La${}_{0.8}$Sr${}_{0.2}$MnO${}_3$(110)