Local structural studies of chiral copper surfaces

COLL 551

Scott S. Perry and Xueying Zhao. Department of Chemistry, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5003
Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has been used to image the terrace, step, and kink structures of two single crystal copper surfaces: Cu(643) (chiral) and Cu(533) (achiral). Initial measurements have revealed the sensitive relationship between sample preparation and the resulting surface structure. In particular, room temperature STM images have revealed the existence of significant step bunching on surfaces, with respect to the ideal surface termination. These measurements have also revealed the presence of copper adatom mobility at room temperature and time dependent changes in the step edge structure. The influence of such mobility on surface chirality will be discussed.
 

Chiral Surfaces

Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry
The 225th ACS National Meeting, New Orleans, LA, March 23-27, 2003