Upton M H, Wei C M, Chou M Y, Miller T, Chiang T C
Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801-2902, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Jul 9;93(2):026802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.026802. Epub 2004 Jul 7.
Atomically uniform Pb films are successfully prepared on Si(111), despite a large lattice mismatch. Angle-resolved photoemission measurements of the electronic structure show layer-resolved quantum well states which can be correlated with dramatic variations in thermal stability. The odd film thicknesses N = 5, 7, and 9 monolayers show sharp quantum well states. The even film thicknesses N = 6 and 8 do not, but are much more stable than the odd film thicknesses. This correlation is discussed in terms of a total energy calculation and Friedel-like oscillations in properties.