title: Transition from Reconstruction toward Thin Film on the (110) Surface of Strontium Titanate.
abstract: The surfaces of metal oxides often are reconstructed with a geometry and composition that is considerably different from a simple termination of the bulk. Such structures can also be viewed as ultrathin films, epitaxed on a substrate. Here, the reconstructions of the SrTiO3 (110) surface are studied combining scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), transmission electron diffraction, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), and analyzed with density functional theory calculations. Whereas SrTiO3 (110) invariably terminates with an overlayer of titania, with increasing density its structure switches from n × 1 to 2 × n. At the same time the coordination of the Ti atoms changes from a network of corner-sharing tetrahedra to a double layer of edge-shared octahedra with bridging units of octahedrally coordinated strontium. This transition from the n × 1 to 2 × n reconstructions is a transition from a pseudomorphically stabilized tetrahedral network toward an octahedral titania thin film with stress-relief from octahedral strontia units at the surface.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, TU Wien , Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10/134, 1040 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University , Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Loon
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University , Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Subramanian
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, TU Wien , Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10/134, 1040 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gerhold
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Chemistry, TU Wien , Getreidemarkt 9/165-TC, 1060 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: McDermott
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University , Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Enterkin
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, TU Wien , Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10/134, 1040 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hieckel
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials, University of Oxford , Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: B C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Russell
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, University of Saskatchewan , 116 Science Place, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E2, Canada.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Green
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, University of Saskatchewan , 116 Science Place, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E2, Canada.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moewes
authors.affiliation: Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Materials Chemistry, TU Wien , Getreidemarkt 9/165-TC, 1060 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Blaha
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials, University of Oxford , Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Castell
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, TU Wien , Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10/134, 1040 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Diebold
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University , Evanston, Illinois 60208, United States.
authors.forename: L D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Marks
keywords: DFT; Surface structure; epitaxy; reconstruction; thin film nanostructures