Pt- and Au-induced monodirectional nanowires on Ge(110)

The adsorption of Pt or Au on Ge(110) and subsequent annealing resulted in formation of well-ordered monodirectional nanowires (NWs) throughout the surface over a cm-scale. The NWs were aligned along the [11¯0] direction, independent of the surface reconstruction of Ge(110). Metastable-atom deexcitation spectroscopy of Pt-NWs revealed that the topmost part of the NWs comprised Ge atoms, suggesting the exchange of the Ge and metal atoms, leaving an ultrathin Ge layer on top of the NWs. The increase in the electronic density of state near the Fermi energy was observed from both the MDS and UPS spectra of the Pt-NWs, suggesting a metallicity of the NWs.