A Photoemission study of CoO films on Au (111) Surface Science

Abstract

Angle-resolved ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy has been used to study thin layers of Co and CoO on an Au(1 1 1) substrate. A bulk-like CoO layer was obtained for a nominal coverage of 7 ML Co, with Co evaporated in an oxygen atmosphere of 10−4 Pa and the Au(1 1 1) substrate at 350 K. Low-energy electron diffraction of this layer exhibits a (1 × 1) structure, indicating an unreconstructed CoO(1 1 1) surface. Considering the instability of a bulk-like terminated CoO surface, we assume stabilization by OH termination. At low coverage, the CoO layer is oxygen deficient and exhibits metallic character. For the bulk-like CoO layers we found band-like oxygen states and no detectable dispersion for the states near the Fermi edge, which is in agreement with previous investigations of single-crystalline CoO.