UC Irvine

A novel method is presented for preparing ultraflat noble metal surfaces in situ under ultrahigh vacuum from thin metal films that are deposited via physical vapor deposition on commercially available silicon substrates. The method, based on template stripping of thin metal films from Si wafer surfaces, is utilized in this paper to prepare atomically smooth, uncontaminated platinum surfaces for examination by scanning-tunneling microscopy under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. As a standard for comparison, single-crystal Pt(111) surfaces are also examined. The resulting scanning-tunneling microscopy data clearly demonstrate that under the surface preparation conditions examined here, template-stripped platinum surfaces are predominantly 〈111〉 textured with a surface roughness equivalent to or better than a single-crystal Pt(111) surface.