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Nano Research 2023, 16(7): 9602-9607 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5496-2
Research Article | Issue | Published: 27 February 2023

Experimental evidence of surface copper boride

Show Author's Information Xiao-Ji Weng1,  Jie Bai1,  Jingyu Hou1,2,  Yi Zhu1,  Li Wang3,  Penghui Li1,  Anmin Nie1,  Bo Xu1( ),  Xiang-Feng Zhou1( ),  Yongjun Tian1
Center for High Pressure Science, State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, School of Science, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China
Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics and School of Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
Vacuum Interconnected Nanotech Workstation, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123, China
Keywords:
formation mechanism, first principles, structure characterization, surface science, copper boride, ultrahigh vacuum
Topics:
Surface structure
Cite this article:
Weng X-J, Bai J, Hou J, et al. Experimental evidence of surface copper boride. Nano Research, 2023, 16(7): 9602-9607. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5496-2
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

To validate the crystal structure and elucidate the formation mechanism of the unexpected surface copper boride, a systematic scanning tunneling microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy investigations were conducted to confirm the structure of copper-rich boride Cu8B14 after depositing boron on single-crystal Cu(111) surface under ultrahigh vacuum. First-principles calculations with defective surface models further indicate that boron atoms tend to react with Cu atoms near terrace edges or defects, which in turn shapes the intermediate structures of copper boride and leads to the formation of stable Cu-B monolayer via large-scale surface reconstruction eventually.


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Abstract
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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Experimental evidence of surface copper boride

Show Author's information Xiao-Ji Weng1, Jie Bai1, Jingyu Hou1,2, Yi Zhu1, Li Wang3, Penghui Li1, Anmin Nie1, Bo Xu1( ), Xiang-Feng Zhou1( ), Yongjun Tian1
Center for High Pressure Science, State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, School of Science, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China
Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics and School of Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
Vacuum Interconnected Nanotech Workstation, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123, China

Abstract

To validate the crystal structure and elucidate the formation mechanism of the unexpected surface copper boride, a systematic scanning tunneling microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy investigations were conducted to confirm the structure of copper-rich boride Cu8B14 after depositing boron on single-crystal Cu(111) surface under ultrahigh vacuum. First-principles calculations with defective surface models further indicate that boron atoms tend to react with Cu atoms near terrace edges or defects, which in turn shapes the intermediate structures of copper boride and leads to the formation of stable Cu-B monolayer via large-scale surface reconstruction eventually.

Keywords: formation mechanism, first principles, structure characterization, surface science, copper boride, ultrahigh vacuum

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 17 December 2022
Revised: 31 December 2022
Accepted: 08 January 2023
Published: 27 February 2023
Issue date: July 2023

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2023

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11874224 and 52025026), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFA0305900), and the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province of China (No. E2022203109). The authors are grateful for the technical support from Nano-X from Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SINANO).

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