Abstract
We report the first measurements and calculations of the intrinsic mobility of bridge-bonded oxygen (BBO) vacancies on a rutile . The sequences of isothermal (340–420 K) scanning tunneling microscope images show that BBO vacancies migrate along BBO rows. The hopping rate increases exponentially with increasing temperature with an experimental activation energy of 1.15 eV. Density functional theory calculations are in very good agreement giving an energy barrier for hopping of 1.03 eV. Both theory and experiment indicate repulsive interactions between vacancies on a given BBO row.
- Received 3 April 2007
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.126105
©2007 American Physical Society