The growth of Ag films on a TiO2(110)-(1 x 1) surface

We report here the growth of Ag film and its thermal stability on the TiO2( 110)-(1 x 1) surface using combination techniques of low-energy ion scatter ing (LEIS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and low-energy electron diffraction (LEED). At a surface temperature as low as 125 K, a 2D growth of Ag films seems to occur for submonolayer coverages up to similar to0.8 M L. Annealing of low temperature grown Ag films to 500 K for coverage of 1-2 .4 Mt would result in the formation of metastable Ag layers with rest of Ag forming 3D needle-Like islands on top of this Ag film. (C) 2001 Elsevier S cience B.V. All rights reserved.