Materials Research Activities

B&R_paper5_(SurfSciLett1983)

Binnig & Rohrer, Paper 5 (Surface Science Letters):

Gerber and Weibel were back on board as co-authors of a paper sent to Surface Science Letters in April 1983. (What was the difference in status and turn-around time of Surface Science and its Letters?) The paper acknowledged A. Baratoff, a theoretical physicist who was one of the first to publish on STM theory. Baratoff also worked at IBM Zurich.

STM scans of Au(110) surfaces revealed (111) facetting and 1x2 structure, with some local disorder. [Au(110) rough (top) and Au(110) fine (botton)] They compared the results with transmission electron micrscopy and glancing angle x-ray diffraction. They suggested that the local disorder might be the reason that averaging techniques, such as diffraction, had not yet delivered conclusive evidence on a topic of interest, the transition time from 1x1 to 1x2 structure. Of course, this amounted also to an argument for the comparative prowess of the STM. Queries: why were the technicians back on board: did they set up the TEM and x-ray diffraction? What sort of questions were scientists asking at the time, and how did this paper affect them?

Both images on the right were taken from Surface Science Letters, 131, G. Binnig, H. Rohrer, Ch. Gerber, E. Weibel, "(111) facets as the origin of reconstructed Au(110) surfaces", L379-L384, Copyright 1983, with permission from Elsevier Science.

 

  • Introduction to Binnig & Rohrer's 1981-1986 publications

  • Paper 1 (Applied Physics Letters 1982)

  • Paper 2 (Physical Review Letters 1982)
  • Paper 3 (Surface Science 1982)
  • Paper 4 (Helvetica Physica Acta 1983)
  • Paper 5 (Surface Science Letters 1983), you are here
  • Paper 6 (Physica 1984)
  • Paper 7 (Surface Science 1984)
  • Paper 8 (Surface Science Letters 1985)
  • Paper 9 (Europhysics Letters 1986)
  • Paper10 (Scientific American 1986)
  • Interview with Binnig and Rohrer, to be featured soon - members may click here.

This page was last updated on 15 May 2001 by Arne Hessenbruch.