A new (3 × 3)R40° surface reconstruction of the Pt(1 1 1) surface

Abstract

The surface structure of a clean Pt(1 1 1) single crystal was studied using scanning tunnelling microscopy. The surface is unreconstructed after annealing at a temperature lower than 1100 K, but reconstructs at an annealing temperature higher than 1375 K in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber to form a (3 × 3)R40° surface. The transition leads to domains as large as 13 × 13 nm², implying that the reconstructed surface is stabilized by medium-range atomic interactions. The surface atomic density of the reconstructed surface area is 1.33 times of that of the unreconstructed one.

Keywords:

• Pt(111)
• STM
• surface reconstruction