Pseudomorphic growth mode of Pb on the Al13Fe4(0 1 0) approximant surface.

We report the adsorption of lead adatoms on the pseudo-10-fold Al 13 Fe 4 (0 1 0) surface using low energy electron diffraction (LEED), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). For the submonolayer regime, Pb adatoms remain highly mobile across the surface at 300 K. STM analysis indicates the formation of irregularly shaped islands of monoatomic height. The latter do not coalesce with increasing coverage. At 0.95 MLE coverage, the LEED patterns are consistent with a pseudomorphic growth of the adatoms. This is confirmed by STM measurements which reveal local motifs qualitatively similar to those observed on the clean Al 13 Fe 4 (0 1 0) surface, i.e. prior to dosing. Apart from the absence of plasmons, the XPS measurements of Pb 4 f and Al 2 s core levels are comparable to those observed for the Pb/Al(1 1 1) system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]