Epitaxial growth of molybdenum on TiO2(1 1 0)

Molybdenum was deposited on blue (i.e. non-stoichiometric) TiO2(1 1 0) surface using a very low deposition rate (less than 0.05 eqML min−1). The resulting deposit was investigated by means of X-ray photoelectron diffraction (XPD), LEED and XPS. Just after deposition, the film is mainly constituted of metallic molybdenum, contains oxygen homogeneously dispersed through the whole deposit and the broad features detected in XPD scans are interpreted as a coarse epitaxy between TiO2(1 1 0) surface and the (0 0 1) face of bcc molybdenum. The orientation relationship is: Mo(1 0 0)[0 0 1]//TiO2(1 1 0)[0 0 1]. After annealing the deposit at 673 K, XPD scans become sharper and epitaxy is achieved even if no LEED pattern is observed. Moreover, the annealing induces a noticeable decrease of the oxygen content inside the film.