Submonolayer copper telluride phase on Cu(111): Ad-chain and trough formation

A new surface telluride phase on Cu(111) is revealed and structurally characterized with picometer accuracy by a concerted application of LEED-IV, STM, and DFT. It is demonstrated that tellurium interacts strongly with the surface, inducing a complex displacive reconstruction in order to increase the number of available tellurium sites. This finding suggests that the CuTe/Cu interfaces that are used in photovoltaic cells might also be of equally complex structure.