Atom-vacancy hopping in ultra-high vacuum at room temperature in SrTiO3 (001)

Abstract The diffusion at atomic scale is of considerable interest as one the critical processes in growth and evaporation well a probe forces an atomically flat reconstructed surface. This atomic-scale migration to investigate strontium titanate (SrTiO 3 ) it possesses same status oxide electronics does silicon ordinary based on elemental semiconductors. Here we show that (001) terminated SrTiO surface unstable enough allow atom-vacancy hopping room temperature. In this work, single crystal (7 × 2 0.5 mm) was sputtered (0.5 keV, 2.5 µA, 10 min) annealed multiple times ultra-high vacuum (UHV) imaged using scanning tunneling microscope (STM). A relatively observed low-temperature annealing tip–surface interactions caused dislocation mass Both square zig-zag nanolines were with resolution where diline while imaging ceased when sample higher temperature more compact network achieved. Graphic abstract