Ordered Array of Single Adatoms with Remarkable Thermal Stability: Au/Fe3O4(001)

Gold deposited on the Fe$_3$O$_4$(001) surface at room temperature was studied using Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). This surface forms a ($\sqrt2 \times \sqrt2$)R45$^{\circ}$ reconstruction, where pairs of Fe and neighboring O ions are slightly displaced laterally producing undulating rows with `narrow' and `wide' hollow sites. At low coverages, single Au adatoms adsorb exclusively at the narrow sites, with no significant sintering up to annealing temperatures of 400 $^{\circ}$C. We propose the strong site preference to be related to charge and orbital ordering within the first subsurface layer of Fe$_3$O$_4$(001)-($\sqrt2 \times \sqrt2$)R45$^{\circ}$. Due to its high thermal stability, this could prove an ideal model system for probing the chemical reactivity of single atomic species.

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