Formation of a quasiperiodic copper thin film

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.