Ab-Initio Simulation Laboratory

Direct inversion of measured multiple-energy Kikuchi electron patterns from a Si(001) (2 x 1) surface with glancing and normal-incidence geometry shows clear images of the surface dimer and the bulk atoms. The three-dimensional artifact-free real-space images of the atoms contributed from different local emitters are resolved clearly. The observations demonstrate that Kikuchi electron holography has the surface sensitivity and can reveal the atomic structures of complicated multiemitter systems. By changing the collecting angle of Kikuchi electrons, one can selectively image the atoms behind the emitter in the backward direction; thus the surface and the bulk information can be obtained with different collecting angles. Therefore, the potential of Kikuchi electron holography to solve the local atomic structure of the unknown surfaces is high.

The structural bases on the metal/semiconductor interfaces, such as gold trimers on the Au/Si (111)(root 3 x root 3)R30 degrees surface and antimony trimers on the Sb/Si(111)(root 3 x root 3)R30 degrees surface, can be imaged directly with a simple inversion of low-energy (<600 eV) Kikuchi-electron patterns (Kikuchi-electron holography-KEH). The relative positions of the building blocks (trimers) on the adsorbates to the substrate atoms are also determined. This short-range-order KEH tool, which provides the 3D Patterson function, can be viewed as a twin of grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction. Using direct structural information obtained by KEH, one can greatly reduce the tested models in a complete trial-and-error structural-determination process.

We obtained highly resolved and artifact-free 3D holographic images reconstructed from measured Kikuchi electron (quasi-elastic electron) diffraction patterns with contributions from different emitters. Direct inversion of Kikuchi patterns with glancing incidence geometry shows clear images of the surface dimer and the bulk atoms of Si(001)(2 x 1) surface. This observation demonstrates the applicability of electron-emission holography to complicated systems that contain more than one emitter. This work also demonstrates the surface sensitivity of Kikuchi electron holography.

We report the first atomically resolved images of ordered Au trimers on Si(111)root 3X root 3R30 degrees-Au using wave-front reconstruction of scanned-energy glancing-angle Kikuchi electron spectra. Each Au image has a resolution (full width at half magnitude) of less than 1 Angstrom. The images indicate that Au trimers art ordered and nonrotated within the surface plane and with respect to the second-layer Si plane providing direct evidence of the conjugate honeycomb-chained-trimer model for the Au-root 3 system.

Real-time in situ x-ray studies of continuous Pb deposition on Si(111)-(7x7) at 180 K reveal an unusual growth behavior. A wetting layer forms first to cover the entire surface. Then islands of a fairly uniform height of about five monolayers form on top of the wetting layer and grow to fill the surface. The growth then switches to a layer-by-layer mode upon further deposition. This behavior of alternating layer and island growth can be attributed to spontaneous quantum phase separation based on a first-principles calculation of the system energy.

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The adsorptions of CO molecule on various fcc(111) surfaces (Rh, Ir, Pt, and Cu) have been studied by diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (DMC) calculations, and the results show that the top site is the most stable adsorption site on all the four surfaces, in agreement with experiments. In particular, the site preference including the bridge site for CO/Pt(111) is predicted, i.e., the top site is most preferred followed by the bridge site while the hollow sites are much less favorable, in accordance with the existing experimental observations of the bridge-site adsorption, yet never on the hollow sites. Compared to the DMC results, density functional theory (DFT) calculations with the generalized-gradient approximation (GGA) predict very similar adsorption energies on the top site, but they overestimate those on the bridge and hollow sites. That is, although the nonlocal exchange-correlation contribution is small for the single-coordinated top-site adsorption, it is essential and required to be properly included for a correct description of the higher coordinated bridge- and hollow-sites adsorptions. These altogether explain why the top site adsorption for CO on Rh, Pt, and Cu(111) surfaces was not predicted correctly by the previous standard local or semilocal DFT calculations.

We have performed calculations of adsorption energetics on the graphene surface using the state-of-the-art diffusion quantum Monte Carlo method. Two types of configurations are considered in this work: the adsorption of a single O, F, or H atom on the graphene surface and the H-saturated graphene system (graphane). The adsorption energies are compared with those obtained from density functional theory with various exchange-correlation functionals. The results indicate that the approximate exchange-correlation functionals significantly overestimate the binding of O and F atoms on graphene, although the preferred adsorption sites are consistent. The energy errors are much less for atomic hydrogen adsorbed on the surface. We also find that a single O or H atom on graphene has a higher energy than in the molecular state, while the adsorption of a single F atom is preferred over the gas phase. In addition, the energetics of graphane is reported. The calculated equilibrium lattice constant turns out to be larger than that of graphene, at variance with a recent experimental suggestion.

To assess the accuracy of exchange-correlation approximations within density functional theory (DFT), diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (DMC) and DFT methods are used to calculate the energies of isomers of three covalently bonded carbon and boron clusters (C(20), B(18), and B(20)), and three metallic aluminum and copper clusters (Al(13), Al(55), and Cu(13)). We find that local and semilocal DFT methods predict the same energy ordering as DMC for the metallic clusters but not for the covalent clusters, implying that the DFT functionals are inadequate in such systems. In addition, we find that DFT fails to describe energy reductions arising from Jahn-Teller distortions..

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