LEED and UPS study of Ni ≅ (001) vicinal surfaces

Two stepped surfaces of nickel in the vicinity of the (001) plane have been studied by LEED and UPS. On clean surfaces, diffraction patterns show reversible step rearrangements when temperature and contamination are varied. A simple model is proposed describing this reconstruction. UPS spectra measured on these vicinals show no remarkable differences with corresponding EDC's for the clean simple Ni(001) surface, suggesting a large similarity in their respective local density of states. Some results concerning the stability of the surface morphologies upon sulphur adsorption are described.