Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 13: Nanostructures at Surfaces 2
O 13.5: Talk
Monday, September 5, 2022, 16:00–16:15, S052
How covalent chemistry affects the surface dipole of metallic nanostructures — Rustem Bolat1,2, •Jose M. Guevara1, Marvin Knol1,2, Philipp Leinen1, Ruslan Temirov1,2,3, Oliver T. Hofmann4, Reinhard J. Maurer5, F. Stefan Tautz1,2, and Christian Wagner1,2 — 1Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany — 2RWTH Aachen University, Germany — 3Universität zu Köln, Germany — 4Graz University of Technology, Austria — 5University of Warwick, UK
Scanning probe experiments often encounter nanostructures of undercoordinated metal atoms, either as the investigated system or at the tip apex. While the electrostatic properties of extended planar surfaces are textbook material, the interaction of metal adatoms with the surface and with each other opens an interesting playground in which our intuition for the covalent chemistry of such metal structures is limited.
Here we investigate Ag and Au adatoms, monoatomic chains and small clusters, on the Ag (111) surface using quantum dot microscopy. We image the electrostatic potential above these nanostructures and quantify the respective surface dipoles. The two species of adatoms behave antagonistic, as the surface dipoles are positive for Ag and negative for Au structures. The measured dipoles are in excellent agreement with density functional theory calculations. We disentangle the influence of individual adatom-surface and adatom-adatom bonds down to individual atomic orbitals.