THE ROLE OF SURFACE RELAXATIONS IN DETERMINING THE STM IMAGES OF SULFUR ADATOMS AND CLUSTERS ON RE(0001) - THEORY VERSUS EXPERIMENT

We apply our recent Green's function based STM formalism to study the adsorption of S monomers and clusters on Re(0001). Starting from previ ous STM experimental data and LEED results, we consider surface relaxa tions common to the different S structures observed on this system. Th e role of such relaxations on the final shape of the theoretical STM i mages is then examined, and we find that the sensitivity of the images to these structural parameters can be considerable in certain cases. The consistency of proposed relaxed models is also confirmed after a t heory-experiment comparison of the STM images. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scien ce B.V. All rights reserved.