Scanning tunneling microscopy investigation of clean (2 1 1) surface of Ta and Mo

Scanning tunneling microscopy was used to obtain images from clean (2 1 1) surfaces of Ta and Mo under the same ultrahigh vacuum conditions. In the case of tantalum the surface is very rough, and single extending atomic chains reach distances up to 100 Å. Those furrows are a surface reconstruction based on creation of (1 1 0) “micro-facets” along the [1 1 1] direction or (1 1 1)fcc micro-facets with a more dense structure than (1 1 0)bcc plane. In contrast, the (2 1 1) surface of Mo is smooth, and single atomic rows are visible on high resolution STM images. Step bunching occurs on the Mo surface, reducing the number of terrace edges.