Formation of a quasiperiodic copper thin film

TL;DR

This paper reports the synthesis of a copper thin film with a quasiperiodic structure on a quasicrystal surface, demonstrating the potential for creating single-element quasiperiodic films using quasicrystals as templates.

Contribution

It introduces a method to form quasiperiodic copper thin films on quasicrystal surfaces, showing the feasibility of using quasicrystals as templates for such structures.

Findings

Quasiperiodic structure confirmed by LEED measurements.

Fibonacci relationships observed in STM images.

Feasibility demonstrated for single-element quasiperiodic film formation.

Abstract

We have synthesised a thin film of copper with a quasi-periodic structure by the adsorption of copper atoms on the five-fold surface of the icosahedral quasicrystal Al-Pd-Mn at room temperature. The quasi-periodicity of the thin film is manifested in low energy electronic diffraction (LEED) measurements and in the existence of Fibonacci relationships between rows of copper atoms imaged using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). These findings demonstrate the feasibility of single-element quasi-periodic thin film formation using quasicrystals as templates.