Fe nanoparticles on ZnSe: Reversible temperature dependence of the surface barrier potential

The Fe growth on ZnSe(001) takes place via the initial formation of superparamagnetic nano-islands that subsequently coalesce, giving rise to a continuous film for a nominal thickness of 8 Fe monolayers. For a very low Fe coverage (2 Fe monolayers), we show that the surface barrier potential (i.e. the barrier potential seen by electrons incident on the surface), measured by absorbed current spectroscopy, attains very large values (6.9 eV at room temperature) and dramatically changes as a function of temperature, with an increase of ∼1.5 eV from room temperature down to 130 K, largely exceeding similar changes observed in both thin films and nanoparticles. This phenomenon disappears as the thickness increases and is fully reversible with temperature. Nonequilibrium phenomena due to the experimental conditions are present, but are not able to explain the observed data. Inverse photoemission, core level photoemission, x-ray photoemission diffraction, and scanning tunneling microscopy are employed in order to find temperature-dependent properties of the Fe islands: while only minor changes as a function of temperature are present in the electronic band structure, the Fe crystal structure, and the morphology of the islands, a noticeable temperature dependence of the Se segregation through the Fe islands is found.