Structure of the Reduced TiO2(110) Surface Determined by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
Gregory S. Rohrer 1,
Victor E. Henrich 2, and
Dawn A. Bonnell 3
1 Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
2 Surface Science Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520
3 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104
The scanning tunneling microscope has been used to image a reduced TiO2(110) surface in ultrahigh vacuum. Structural units with periodicities rangng from 21 to 3.4 angstroms have been clearly imaged, demonstrating that atomic resolution imaging of an ionic, wide band gap (3.2 electron volts) semiconductor is possible. The observed surface structures can be explained by a model involving ordered arrangements of two-dimensional defects known as crystallographic shear planes and indicate that the topography of nonstoichiometric oxide surfaces can be complex.
