Stability of the polar surfaces of ZnO: A reinvestigation using He-atom scattering

A reinvestigation of the O-terminated, polar surface of zinc oxide, O-ZnO (0001), using scattering of thermal energy He atoms reveals the presence of a (13) reconstruction for the clean surface. This finding is at variance with the results of previous works, where the same surface was found to be unreconstructed. Results for the hydrogen saturated H (11) O-ZnO (0001) surface, which has also been investigated, suggest that the presence of H atoms has a strong impact on the structure of the O-terminated ZnO surfaces.