RHEED study of the growth of cerium oxide on Cu(1Â 1Â 1)

► Epitaxial (1 1 1) oriented CeO2 layers were grown on Cu(1 1 1)) surface at different substrate temperatures. ► The CeO2 layers grew by formation of flat islands. ► Morphology of CeO2 layers was determined from RHEED profile analysis. ► The contraction of CeO2 crystal lattice with respect to the bulk value was observed. ► XPS measurements have shown that the CeO2 structure contained only Ce4+ oxidation state.