Sebastian Meyer (PhD thesis)

Sebastian Meyer (PhD thesis): Model system for correlation phenomena in reduced dimensions - Gold-induced atomic chains on germanium

Abstract

Atomic chains, often called nanowires, form in a self-organized process after the adsorption of metal atoms. These wires are spatially well confined representing a close approach of a true one-dimensional structure. The low-dimensional architecture thereby often leads to anisotropic electronic states with vanishing interchain interaction. In the presence of weak coupling to the substrate a one-dimensional metal can experience a phase transition according to Peierls into an insulating ground state upon temperature, which is accompanied by a periodic lattice distortion. Without any coupling a strict onedimensional regime is reached, where the common Fermi liquid description breaks down with the quasi-particles being replaced by collective excitations of spin and charge. This state is referred to as a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL), which has been observed so far only in anisotropic bulk materials. An experimental fingerprint for both phenomena can be obtained from the electronic states close to the chemical potential, i.e. the Fermi energy. Using a semiconducting substrate provides the best observation conditions since any bulk projection onto the interesting bands is avoided.
In case of Au/Ge(001) the growth of gold-induced chains is guided by the dimerized bare Ge (2×1) reconstruction yielding two different domains of wires rotated by 90° going from one terrace to the next by a single height step. The superior wetting capabilities of gold on germanium enables a complete coverage of the Ge(001) surface with longrange ordered wires. Their length scale and defect density is limited by the underlying substrate, for which a cleaning procedure is introduced based on wet-chemical etching followed by thermal dry oxidation.
The band structure of Au/Ge(001) is investigated by angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy as a function of temperature. Two states are observed: a two-dimensional metallic state with hole-like dispersion and a one-dimensional electron pocket, whose band-integrated spectral function does not show the typical Fermi distribution at the chemical potential. Instead, a decrease of spectral weight applies following a power-law. This behavior can be well explained within the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory which replaces the Fermi-Landau formalism in strictly one-dimensional systems.
To enable theoretical modeling, a structural analysis was performed on the basis of surface x-ray diffraction (SXRD). From the in-plane scattering data a Patterson-map could be extracted leading to in-plane distances between gold atoms in the unit cell. This provides the first step towards a complete structural model and therefore towards a band structure calculation. First successful attempts have been made to manipulate the system by controlled adsorption of potassium. Here, an n-type doping effect is observed for submonolayer coverage whereas slightly increased coverages in combination with thermal energy lead to a new surface reconstruction.

You find the complete pdf version here.