Abstract
A careful investigation of the Pt(111) surface has been carried out, using the MeV heliumscattering technique. The anomalously large surface relaxation effect reported previously has been identified as an experimental artifact resulting from an unexpectedly large surface damage effect at low temperature. Optimum conditions have been established for minimizing the main experimental sources of error: background subtraction, radiation damage, and deviations from the Rutherford scattering law. Using these optimum conditions, a series of scattering measurements has been made over the temperature range 40–300 K. At all temperatures, we observe a significant anisotropy in the 〈111〉 angular scans, indicating an outward relaxation of the Pt(111) surface plane. By comparing this observed anisotropy with a set of Monte Carlo simulations, a value of 0.03 ∓ 0.01 Å (i.e. 1.3 ∓ 0.4%) is obtained for the surface relaxation. The temperature dependence of the surface peak also indicates that the enhanced vibrational amplitude of the surface atoms is not nearly as large as had been derived previously from high-temperature LEED studies.
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