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I. Sokolovic, G. Franceschi, Z. Wang, J. Xu, J. Pavelec, M. Riva, M. Schmid, U. Diebold, M. Setvin:
"Quest for a pristine unreconstructed SrTiO₃(001) surface: An atomically resolved study via noncontact atomic force microscopy";
Physical Review B, 103 (2021), L2414061 - L2414067.

The surfaces of perovskite oxides affect their functional properties, and while a bulk-truncated (1 × 1)
termination is generally assumed, its existence and stability is controversial. Here, such a surface is created
by cleaving the prototypical SrTiO3(001) in ultrahigh vacuum, and its response to thermal annealing is observed.
Atomically resolved noncontact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM) shows that intrinsic point defects on the
as-cleaved surface migrate at temperatures above 200 ◦C. At 400 ◦C-500 ◦C, a disordered surface layer forms,
albeit still with a (1 × 1) pattern in low-energy electron diffraction (LEED). Purely TiO2-terminated surfaces,
prepared by wet-chemical treatment, are also disordered despite their (1 × 1) periodicity in LEED.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.103.L241406

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_297562.pdf