BaFe2As2 exhibits properties characteristic of the parent compounds of the newly discovered iron (Fe)-based high-TC superconductors. By combining the real space imaging of scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S) with momentum space quantitative Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) we have identified the surface plane of cleaved BaFe2As2 crystals as the As terminated Fe-As layer - the plane where superconductivity occurs. LEED and STM/S data on the BaFe2As2(001) surface indicate an ordered arsenic (As) - terminated metallic surface without reconstruction or lattice distortion. It is surprising that the STM images the different Fe-As orbitals associated with the orthorhombic structure, not the As atoms in the surface plane.
@article{arxiv.0905.3194,
title = {Surface Geometric and Electronic Structure of BaFe2As2(001)},
author = {V. B. Nascimento and Ang Li and Dilushan R. Jayasundara and Yi Xuan and Jared O'Neal and Shuheng Pan and T. Y. Chien and Biao Hu and X. B. He and Guorong Li and A. S. Sefat and M. A. McGuire and B. C. Sales and D. Mandrus and M. H. Pan and Jiandi Zhang and R. Jin and E. W. Plummer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.3194},
year = {2015}
}