Grazing Incidence Fast Atom Diffraction (GIFAD): Doing RHEED with Atoms

Abstract

We describe a new diffraction technique to investigate the surface of single crystal surfaces. Its geometry is the same as that of the RHEED technique. In GIFAD, instead of 10-30 keV electrons, the projectiles are neutral atoms (mainly helium) with energies in the keV range. We present few results obtained with GIFAD highlighting the simplicity of interpretation. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2010.101]