✍ Scribed by Barry Haycock; José Ortega; James P. Lewis
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Using ab initio molecular dynamics, we study the formation of dimers on the β‐SiC(100)‐c(4 × 2) surface. According to previously published experimental results of Derycke et al. [Appl. Phys. Lett. 88(2), 022105 (2006)] (using scanning tunneling spectroscopy, core‐level photoemission spectroscopy, and low‐energy electron diffraction) the (100)‐c(4 × 2) surface is highly prone to form potassium dimers. In their work, potassium atoms fill adjacent well‐defined pedestal sites when there are lower coverages of potassium deposited onto the surface (∼0.16 monolayers). Contrary to the work by Derycke et al., we find that potassium does not prefer to form dimers on the (100)‐c(4 × 2) surface, but rather potassium tends to reconstruct (after annealing simulations) by choosing distant pedestal sites in order to minimize the overlap of the ionic radii of the potassium atoms.
📜 SIMILAR VOLUMES