Ag and Au thin layers on Ta(2 1 1) face

It has been found that the Ag adsorbate forms a dilute chain structure on the Ta(2 1 1) surface upon heating to 600 K. Ag atomic chains are arranged along the [1 1 1] direction of the substrate and occupy every second hollow row typical of this surface. In contrast, Au heated to 1000 K is likely to produce a surface alloy with the substrate. The obtained STM results show that terrace edges of the clean Ta(2 1 1) surface are imperfect and contain adjacent atomic chains of different length and different separation in the [1 1 0] direction.