Electronically decoupled stacking fault tetrahedra embedded in Au(111) films

Koen Schouteden (), Behnam Amin-Ahmadi, Zhe Li, Dmitry Muzychenko, Dominique Schryvers and Chris Van Haesendonck
Additional contact information
Koen Schouteden: Solid-State Physics and Magnetism Section, KU Leuven
Behnam Amin-Ahmadi: Electron Microscopy for Materials Science (EMAT), University of Antwerp
Zhe Li: Solid-State Physics and Magnetism Section, KU Leuven
Dmitry Muzychenko: Faculty of Physics, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University
Dominique Schryvers: Electron Microscopy for Materials Science (EMAT), University of Antwerp
Chris Van Haesendonck: Solid-State Physics and Magnetism Section, KU Leuven

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Stacking faults are known as defective structures in crystalline materials that typically lower the structural quality of the material. Here, we show that a particular type of defect, that is, stacking fault tetrahedra (SFTs), exhibits pronounced quantized electronic behaviour, revealing a potential synthetic route to decoupled nanoparticles in metal films. We report on the electronic properties of SFTs that exist in Au(111) films, as evidenced by scanning tunnelling microscopy and confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. We find that the SFTs reveal a remarkable decoupling from their metal surroundings, leading to pronounced energy level quantization effects within the SFTs. The electronic behaviour of the SFTs can be described well by the particle-in-a-box model. Our findings demonstrate that controlled preparation of SFTs may offer an alternative way to achieve well-decoupled nanoparticles of high crystalline quality in metal thin films without the need of thin insulating layers.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14001 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms14001

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14001

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().