Scanning tunneling microscopy investigations of the local structure of Tl2Ba2CaCu2O8 single crystals

The in-plane structure of single-crystal samples of Tl2Ba2CaCu2O8 has been imaged at room temperature using a scanning tunneling microscope. Atomic-resolution surface images exhibit areas in which the structure has tetragonal symmetry (peak spacing 2.5±0.2 Å) and regions in which the structure is distorted from tetragonal symmetry. The lattice spacing indicates that the observed structure corresponds to the in-plane thallium and oxygen positions. The observation of both sites also suggests that the Tl-O band makes a significant contribution to the density of states near the Fermi level. In addition, a weak one-dimensional superlattice (period 10±0.5 Å) which shows short-range order has been observed.