An investigation was made of the clean (100) surface, which was known to be pseudo-hexagonally reconstructed and for which there was some evidence of second-layer reconstruction. The large unit cell made it difficult to investigate the deeper layers by using methods such as low-energy electron diffraction. A so-called fingerprint technique was used here in order to compare highly-resolved scanning tunnelling microscopic data for the clean (100) surface with effective-medium simulations and thus determine the geometrical structure of the second atomic layer. It was shown that scanning tunnelling microscopy could be sensitive to deeper-layer effects, and that good agreement could be achieved only for an unreconstructed second layer. The simulation results also agreed well with the corrugations that were indicated by low-energy electron diffraction, whereas the maximum corrugation amplitude was higher than that previously derived from He-diffraction measurements.

Pt (100) Quasi-Hexagonal Reconstruction: a Comparison between Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy Data and Effective Medium Theory Simulation Calculations G.Ritz, M.Schmid, P.Varga, A.Borg, M.Rønning: Physical Review B, 1997, 56[16], 10518-25