Structural instability of the hydrogenated C(111) surface: in situ observation of (2 x 1) domain shrinkage

Results in our study indicate that hydrogen atoms segregate to form metasta ble, highly hydrogenated domains on as-dosed C(1 1 1)-(1 x 1) surface with a significant temperature dependence of domain growth. Heating of the parti ally hydrogenated C(1 1 1) surface causes shrinking of the (2 x 1) domains as well as the relaxation of the hydrogenated domains. In this work, low en ergy electron diffraction in conjunction with gated heating techniques have been applied to observe the thermal effect on the structural instability o f the diamond C(1 1 1) surface. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights r eserved.