Abstract
Self-organized growth of surface supported nano-structures like atomic nanowires are likely to play important role in future electronic devices where the confined electrons show quantization phenomena. The formation and growth behavior of epitaxial atomic nanowires of 3d, 4d and 5d elements on a corrugated molecular Cu3N network on a Cu(110) surface have been reported. An element independent growth of nanowires consisting of 5 atomic rows (~ 1 nm in width) running along [1-10] direction on Cu3N-Cu(110) surface was observed [1]. The charge density of Cu(110) surface can be dramatically altered by terminating the surface with a (2×3) copper nitride (Cu3N) layer. A proper understanding of the local electronic properties of the corrugated Cu3N-Cu(110) molecular network and the atomic nanowires grown on this surface would be fundamentally important. We report here the low temperature (4.7 K) scanning tunneling spectroscopy (LT-STS) studies of both the Cu3N layer and the Cu, Fe & Au atomic nanowires grown at room temperature on this surface. Constant height and constant current spectroscopy measurements have been carried out on the Cu3N network and on the atomic nanowires. LT-STS studies on the Cu3N surface show three unoccupied electronic states at 2.0 V, 3.4 V and 4.0 V and two occupied electronic states at -5.6 V and -8.0 V. These results are qualitatively understood as various hybridized N 2p Cu 3d states [2]. Tunneling spectroscopy measurements performed on the atomic nanowires of Cu, Fe & Au show appearance of two pronounced unoccupied electronic states at ~ 1.8 V and ~ 3.8 V. These observations will be discussed in view of the electronic structure of the Cu/Fe/Au-Cu3N-Cu(110) system.[1] X.-D. Ma, D. I. Bazhanov, O. Fruchart, F.Yildiz, T.Yokoyama, M.Przybylski, V.Stepanyuk, W. Hergert and J.Kirschner. PRL 102, 205503 (2009)[2] K. Bhattacharjee, X. –D. Ma, Y. Zhang, M. Przybylski and J. Kirschner, accepted Surf. Sci., doi: 10.1016/j.susc. 2011.12.002
24-08-2026