Growth of oxygen-induced nanoscale-pyramidal facets on Rh(210) surface

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Oxygen-induced nanometer scale faceting of the atomically rough Rh(210) surface has been studied using Auger electron spectroscopy, low energy electron diffraction (LEED), and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). When the Rh(210) surface is annealed at temperature ≥550 K in oxygen (pressure ≥2×10^-8 Torr), it becomes completely covered with nanometer-scale facets. LEED studies reveal that the faceted surface is characterized by three-sided nanoscale pyramids exposing one reconstructed (110) and two {731} faces on each pyramid. STM measurements confirm the LEED results and show that the average facet size ranges from 12 to 21nm when changing annealing temperature from 800 to 1600 K. Moreover, atomically resolved STM images show that the (110) face of faceted Rh(210) exhibits various reconstructions (1×n, $n=2--4$) depending on oxygen coverage. Faceted Rh(210) is a potential template for studies of structure sensitive reactions.