Terrace effects in grazing-incidence fast atom diffraction from a LiF(001) surface

The effect produced by surface defects on grazing-incidence fast atom diffraction (GIFAD) patterns is studied by considering the presence of terraces in a LiF(001) sample. For helium atoms impinging along the (110) direction of the LiF surface, we analyze the influence of a monolayer terrace with it...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Frisco, Leandro, Gravielle, Maria Silvia
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2022
Country:Argentina
Institution:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repository:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/215010
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/215010
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:FAST ATOM DIFRACTION
LiF(001)
SURFACE
DEFECTS
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.3
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Description
Summary:The effect produced by surface defects on grazing-incidence fast atom diffraction (GIFAD) patterns is studied by considering the presence of terraces in a LiF(001) sample. For helium atoms impinging along the (110) direction of the LiF surface, we analyze the influence of a monolayer terrace with its edge oriented parallel or perpendicular to the axial channel. We found that the presence of an outward transverse step introduces a diffuse background above the Laue circle, which displays additional peaked structures. For inward transverse steps, instead, such a background is placed below the Laue circle, showing a much weaker intensity. On the other hand, parallel steps give rise to asymmetric angular distributions, which are completely confined to the Laue circle. Therefore, these theoretical results suggest that GIFAD might be used to characterize terrace defects.