Nanomesh - Preparation and Analysis

Preparation and Analysis

Well-ordered nanomeshes are grown by thermal decomposition of borazine (HBNH)3, a colorless substance that is liquid at room temperature. The nanomesh results after exposing the atomically clean Rh(111) or Ru(0001) surface to borazine by chemical vapor deposition (CVD).

The substrate is kept at a temperature of 796°C (1070 K) when borazine is introduced in the vacuum chamber at a dose of about 40 L (1 Langmuir = 10−6 torr sec). A typical borazine vapor pressure inside the ultrahigh vacuum chamber during the exposure is 3x10−7 mbar.

After cooling down to room temperature, the regular mesh structure is observed using different experimental techniques. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) gives a direct look on the local real space structure of the nanomesh, while low energy electron diffraction (LEED) gives information about the surface structures ordered over the whole sample. Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) gives information about the electronic states in the outermost atomic layers of a sample, i.e. electronic information of the top substrate layers and the nanomesh.

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