Abstract
The oxide surface structure plays a vital role in controlling and utilizing the emergent phenomena occurring at the interface of nanoarchitecture. A complete understanding of ternary oxide surfaces remains challenging due to complex surface reconstructions in various chemical and physical environments. Here a thermodynamic framework is developed to treat the stability of ternary oxide surfaces with finite temperature and chemical environments. Strontium titanate, as a representative ternary oxide, is used to establish the complete energy landscape of SrTiO(3) (001) surface. The complete mapping yields a comprehensive understanding of various stable SrTiO(3) surfaces with finite temperature and chemical potential or vapor pressure of the constituents, i.e., Sr (or Ti) metal and oxygen. This treatment also reveals a stable surface unknown yet with SrTi(2)O(3) stoichiometry, which unveils the missing link between numerous previous experimental observations and the current understanding of SrTiO(3) surface. Interestingly, the new surface shows an anisotropic surface-localized metallic state originating from the characteristic surface structure. The findings would provide a viable way to understand ternary oxide surfaces and further utilize SrTiO(3) surfaces for oxide nanoarchitectures.