Does a pristine, unreconstructed SrTiO${}_3$(001) surface exist?

Abstract

The surfaces of perovskite oxides affect their functional properties, and while a bulk-truncated (1$\times$1) termination is generally assumed, its existence and stability is controversial. Here, such a surface is created by cleaving the prototypical SrTiO${}_3$(001) in ultra-high vacuum, and its response to thermal annealing is observed. Atomically resolved nc-AFM shows that intrinsic point defects on the as-cleaved surface migrate at temperatures above 200\,${}^{\circ }$C. At 400--500\,${}^{\circ }$C, a disordered surface layer forms, albeit still with a (1$\times$1) pattern in LEED. Purely TiO${}_2$-terminated surfaces, prepared by wet-chemical treatment, are also disordered despite their (1$\times$1) periodicity in LEED.

References in corpus (14)

• 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
• Tailoring a two-dimensional electron gas at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 (001) interface by epitaxial strain
• Tailoring the nature and strength of electron-phonon interactions in the SrTiO${}_3$(001) two-dimensional electron liquid
• Quasiparticle dynamics and spin-orbital texture of the SrTiO3 two-dimensional electron gas
• Preparation of atomically-flat SrTiO3 surfaces using a deionized-water etching and thermal annealing procedure
• Berry-phase theory of polar discontinuities at oxide-oxide interfaces
• Atomically Resolved FeSe/SrTiO3(001) Interface Structure by Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy
• Unintentional F doping of the surface of SrTiO3(001) etched in HF acid -- structure and electronic properties
• Electrostatic stability of insulating surfaces: Theory and applications
• Atomic-scale structure of the SrTiO3(001)-c(6x2) reconstruction: Experiments and first-principles calculations
• Stoichiometry-driven switching between surface reconstructions on SrTiO${}_3$(001)
• Observation of a two-dimensional electron gas at the surface of annealed SrTiO3 single crystals by scanning tunneling spectroscopy
• Incipient ferroelectricity: A route towards bulk-terminated SrTiO3

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Resolving the intrinsic short-range ordering of K${}^{+}$ ions on cleaved muscovite mica
• Universal Structural Influence on the 2D Electron Gas at SrTiO${}_3$ Surfaces
• Machine Learning for Exploring Small Polaron Configurational Space
• Automated Real-Space Lattice Extraction for Atomic Force Microscopy Images
• Duality and degeneracy lifting in two-dimensional electron liquids on SrTiO${}_3$(001)
• Instability of oxide perovskite surfaces induced by vacancy formation