Stability of the polar surfaces of ZnO: A reinvestigation using He-atom scattering

Abstract

A reinvestigation of the O-terminated, polar surface of zinc oxide, O-ZnO(0001\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{}), using scattering of thermal energy He atoms reveals the presence of a (1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}3) reconstruction for the clean surface. This finding is at variance with the results of previous works, where the same surface was found to be unreconstructed. Results for the hydrogen saturated H(1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}1) O-ZnO(0001\ifmmode\bar\else\textasciimacron\fi{}) surface, which has also been investigated, suggest that the presence of H atoms has a strong impact on the structure of the O-terminated ZnO surfaces.