The growth mechanism and structure of ultrathin cobalt films deposited on the Pd(111) surface

Abstract Ultrathin films of cobalt were deposited by thermal evaporation on the Pd(111) surface at room temperature. The combination of low energy ion scattering (LEIS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) shows that cobalt grows forming multi-atomic layer islands. X-ray photoelectron diffraction (XPD) and low energy electron diffraction (LEED) indicate that for the first 1–2 atomic layers the cobalt islands adopt an fcc structure with the same in-plane parameter as the substrate. For thicker films, cobalt maintains the fcc stacking sequence with a gradual relaxation to the lattice parameter of bulk Co.