Scanning tunnelling microscopic observations of a Au(111) surface reconstruction, induced by prolonged annealing of gold films in oxygen (pO2 = 1bar) at 800C, were reported. At the atomic scale, the surface was characterized by a (√3 x √3)R30° structure. In addition, the surface exhibited a long-range ordered hexagonal superstructure with a periodicity of 80Å and a corrugation of about 0.5Å. Convincing evidence was presented that this surface morphology was induced by chemisorption of atomic oxygen at the Au(111) surface.

Observation by Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy of an Hexagonal Au(111) Surface Reconstruction Induced by Oxygen. L.Huang, J.Chevrier, P.Zeppenfeld, G.Cosma: Applied Physics Letters, 1995, 66[8], 935