Physico-Chemical nanomaterials science

InTe surface application as template for indium deposited nanosystem formation
P.V. Galiy1, T.M. Nenchuk1, A. Ciszewski2, P. Mazur2, V.I. Dzyuba1, T.R. Makar1
1 Electronics and Computer Technology Department, Ivan Franko Lviv National University, 50 Dragomanov Street, Lviv, 79005, Ukraine.
E-mail: galiy@electronics.lnu.edu.ua
2 Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Wrocław, pl. Maxa Borna 9, 50-204 Wrocław, Poland.

The InTe mono crystal surface is not studied well enough, but like the rest of the 2D layered semiconductors, e.g. InSe, newly emerging nowadays, may now be object of interest for application at functional nanoscale devices. 
It looks like that surfaces of 2D layered crystals are one among most perspective templates for self-assembling of metal nanostructures due to the solid state dewetting (SSD) process. From a physical point of view, it is clear that effective pattern assembly requires nanostructure precursor's mobility over the substrate surface, a property that is naturally connected with poor adhesion. Due to InTe intrinsic bulk anisotropy its (001) surface might be just easily obtained by cleavage even in UHV which makes it suitable as a template for obtaining nanosystems with reduced dimension in situ.
The initial surface before deposition, so-called, template was characterised by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and low energy electron diffraction (LEED) and bulk of the crystal by X-ray diffraction (XRD). XRD study (STOE STADI P, CuKα1) shows tetragonal crystal structure of the TlSe type (I4/mcm space group, lattice parameters a = 8.4414(6) Å, c = 7.1333(5) Å). The templates have got excellent surface structural quality in macroscale according to LEED and subsequent phase-elemental composition of InTe as determined by XPS.
The study of In deposition with further nanosystems formation was conducted using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS) data from Omicron NanoTechnology STM/AFM System. The initial InTe surface shows square surface lattice with ~8 Å parameter. Thermal evaporator EFM-3 was applied for In deposition in UHV. We observed the formation of nanosized 1D linear structures in a result of the SSD process. The STS spectra analyses show good correlation between SSD and increase in the peak of the density of states within the band gap of InTe corresponding to metallic phase with increasing degree of indium coverage.