This is our recipe to prepare good TiO2(110) surface. If you find them useful,
please cite:
- in order to have a good 1×1 surface reconstruction, we use the typical UHV procedure consisting in several cycles of sputtering and annealing. Sputtering is made with argon ions accelerated at an energy between 0.5 – 1.5 keV during approximately 10 minutes. Annealing is carried out under pressures in the range of 10(-10) mbar at temperatures of 1000-1100K during approximately 2 minutes. These cycles are repeated several times until an atomically clean surface is observed by STM. This procedure gives rise a surface with long terraces (>50nm) and monoatomic steps.
- the only secret to obtain a good 1×2 reconstruction is to have the substrate heavily reduced. This is easily recognizable due to the dark blue color of the sample (almost black). Once this degree of reduction is achieved, the transition between both reconstructions is spontaneous. The preparation procedure does not differ much from the one for the 1×1 reconstruction. In fact, the only difference is the annealing time that in this case should last for at least 30 minutes, keeping the same temperature.
You can also send your recipe or trick to us, and we will publish it.
More details, please contact: cssanchez@icmm.csic.es