Electronic structure and thermal stability of Be films on the surface of the $(10\bar10)$Re face

It has been shown that beryllium atoms, when deposited onto the surface of a $(10\bar10)$Re face at room temperature, form a multilayer film growing according to the “simultaneous multilayer” mechanism. When heated, this film rearranges, forming a bulk intermetallic compound at 800-1200 K, and at higher temperatures a surface compound of ReBe. The activation energy for the reactive diffusion of beryllium atoms into rhenium is 2.2 eV. Rearrangement of the film leads to a significant transformation of the shape of the Auger line of beryllium, which is a multiplet with energies of 75, 87, 95 and 104 eV for a multilayer film. The formation of the intermetallic compound gives rise to a peak with an energy of 109 eV, and the transition to a surface compound again leads to the formation of a triplet, but with different peak energies of 81, 104 and 114 eV. These Auger signal transformations can be used as “fingerprints” of the corresponding physicochemical states of beryllium on the surface.