TY - GEN A1 - Flege, Jan Ingo A1 - Höcker, Jan A1 - Sadowski, Jerzy T. A1 - Senanayake, Sanjaya D. A1 - Falta, Jens T1 - Nucleation, morphology, and structure of sub‐nm thin ceria islands on Rh(111) T2 - Surface and Interface Analysis N2 - The early stages of ceria growth on Rh(111) at high temperature have been investi-gated by low‐energy electron microscopy and photoemission electron microscopy. Ceria was deposited by reactive Ce deposition at substrate temperatures between 700°C and 900°C in an oxygen ambient of 5 × 10−7 Torr. At 700°C, we observe a high nucleation density of 100‐nm‐sized islands. With elevated temperature, the average island size increases, and the nucleation density decreases. Triangularly shaped islands nucleate preferentially at step edges, with seemingly abrupt interfaces between Ce and Rh. At 900°C, the island edges are still straight, but during growth the islands lose their triangular form. Instead, growth along the substrate step edges becomes favorable, leading to a maze‐like morphology. Atomic force microscopy reveals islands of 0.3 to 0.6‐nm height, consistent with ceria islands formed by one or two trilayers (O―Ce―O) of ceria. Moreover, the second layer of the islands is also triangularly shaped, with lateral dimensions of 50 nm and similar step heights. IV‐LEEM analysis leads to the conclusion that the rhodium surface is covered by a layer of reduced cerium oxide, which is partially overgrown by smaller islands of CeO2. KW - ceria KW - Rh (111) KW - low‐energy electron microscopy (LEEM) KW - photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) KW - IV-LEEM Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/sia.6567 SN - 0142-2421 SN - 1096-9918 VL - 51 IS - 1 SP - 110 EP - 114 ER -