Abstract
Using high-resolution low-energy electron diffraction, we show that the thermal roughening transition of a clean unreconstructed Pb(110) surface can be altered by impurities in the surface. The flat surface becomes a two-level regular terrace structure (1D) along the close-packed direction above 350 K with terraces modeled by a cut-off geometric distribution. The original Kosteriitz-Thouless roughening transition at 415 K for the clean surface was delayed until 480 K and the transition was irreversible due to the change in the amount of impurities in the surface.
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