LEED studies of adsorption on vicinal copper surfaces

Abstract

As a means for studying the role of atomic steps in adsorption phenomena LEED has been used to investigate the properties of vicinal copper surfaces. Single crystalline surfaces were cut at angles up to 20° from the (100) pole along [001] and [011̄] zones. The diffraction patterns obtained for the clean surfaces and after adsorption of oxygen, nitrogen ions, carbon and sulphur are described. The emphasis of the paper is on the method of interpretation of the geometry of the patterns, which may be done by straightforward kinematic analyses. In the case of nitrogen it is found that if the steps are widely separated the structure of the layer adsorbed on the terrace is the same as that on the low index surface. When the step spacing is small, and comparable with the crystalline parameter of the adsorbed layer, modifications occur which give rise to different superlattices which extend over several terraces. Adsorption of sulphur on 〈11〉 steps can produce a change in the periodicity of the adsorbed layer parallel to the step direction. The study of diffraction patterns for vicinal surfaces with different step spacings may provide an interesting technique for verifying the interpretation of patterns for low index surfaces.