UT Physics Research Highlights: Beginning    Previous Highlight    Next Highlight    UT Physics Research Highlights: End    UT Physics Research Main Page

Title Image










Electron Diffraction STM Image


Ball Model Image


Work performed on the superconductor Sr2RuO4 by the surface and interface group at UT was featured in Science magazine (August 2000). The electron diffraction, scanning tunneling microscope, and ball model images here depict a surface reconstruction, or rearrangement of the surface atoms, which was discovered in this material. The "extra" spots in the diffraction pattern, indicated by the arrows in the top left image, correspond to this reconstruction. The alternating light and dark spots in the STM image in the top right show Sr atoms that are buckled up and down, respectively. If there were no surface reconstruction, the atoms at the corners of the black square in the STM image would be equally bright. Calculations made by our collaborators in Japan indicate that this reconstruction could have interesting implications for this superconductor -- the surface is expected to be ferromagnetic while the rest of the material is not.