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Formation of Gallium-induced nanostructures on single crystal HOPG surface

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Abstract

The room temperature growth of gallium atoms on the highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) surface has been performed. The gallium atoms were deposited by thermal evaporation method in an ultra high vacuum system at a base pressure 5 × 10−10 torr. The X-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS) studies had been performed to confirm the presence of gallium atoms on HOPG surface. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STM) technique was employed to study the surface morphology of the clean HOPG surface and gallium covered HOPG surfaces which recognize the formation of gallium induced nanostructures. The deconvoluted XPS core level spectra of C (1s) and Ga (3d) demonstrate the possible interaction between substrate and the adsorbate atoms. The STM analysis revealed that the gallium deposition on HOPG led to significant change in the surface morphology. It was observed that the Ga atoms adsorbed as layer structure on HOPG surface for low coverage while quasi one-dimensional chain like nanostructure (1 ± 0.2 nm) has been formed for higher Ga coverage. The nanostructured surfaces induced by Ga deposition are found to be stable and could be used as a template for the growth of metallic nanostructures.

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Acknowledgment:

The study is supported by DST (India) via grant (SR/FTP/PS-02/2006). One of the authors, JS acknowledges IIT Delhi, for the granting permission to pursue the summer training at NPL. AKSC is grateful to the CSIR, India for providing fellowship under CSIR-JRF scheme.

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Correspondence to Govind.

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Sandhu, J., Chauhan, A.K.S. & Govind Formation of Gallium-induced nanostructures on single crystal HOPG surface. J Nanopart Res 13, 3503–3509 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-011-0271-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-011-0271-9

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