Straight sections of step edges on a NiAl(110) curved single crystal surface used to calculate an approximation of step formation energy

Curved crystals may feature a smooth transition between different vicinal surfaces. Using one curved single crystal to study different vicinal surfaces requires less experimental time than using several single flat crystals. Here, we study step distributions on the (110) plane of a curved NiAl singl...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Piñeiros-Bastidas, Jessika M., Auras, Sabine V., Juurlink, Ludo B.F.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/373796
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/373796
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:NiAl (110)
Curved single crystal
STM
Image analysis
Terrace width
Step formation energy approximation
Descripción
Sumario:Curved crystals may feature a smooth transition between different vicinal surfaces. Using one curved single crystal to study different vicinal surfaces requires less experimental time than using several single flat crystals. Here, we study step distributions on the (110) plane of a curved NiAl single-crystal surface, which consists of alternating Ni and Al atom rows. We use scanning tunneling microscopy under UHV conditions at room temperature and our home-built Python-based analysis script to obtain statistical information on kink and straight sections along step-edge distributions from STM images. We perform this analysis mainly to study this single crystal’s kink distributions and step termination We propose a new method to estimate the step formation energy based on step edge analysis and statistical mechanics. With this method, we find an approximation of the step formation energy for NiAl(110).