In this thesis the morphology and the atomic structure of quasi-one-dimensional structures grown on Si were determined by means of diffraction experiments in combination with kinematic diffraction theory calculations. In the first and the second study a formerly unknown superstructure of Dy/Tb on Si(111) was characterized by means of STM, DFT, SPA-LEED experiments and kinematic diffraction calculations. Here, a structure model could be proposed which contains half as many subsurface Si vacancies as compared to the well-known superstructure of Dy/Tb on Si(111) it was derived from. Due to the decreased number of subsurface Si vacancies the reconstruction is subject to an uni-axial strain which is mitigated by the formation of domains separated by anti-phase domain boundaries. It could be shown that two different types of domains alternate across the surface forming quasi-one-dimensional domains. Additionally, the distribution of the domains could be derived by comparison with kinematic diffraction calculations. In the third study a deeper insight into the complex system of bundled rare-earth silicide nanowires on Si(001) was given. Here, the distributions of the NW width, the bundle width and the bundle distance were deduced from the diffraction patterns collected by SPA-LEED and the subsequent comparison to kinematic diffraction theory calculations. Additionally, it was shown that the (2 x 1) reconstruction sometimes observed on top of the NWs by STM cannot exist over larger parts of the sample and instead a (1 x 1) reconstruction needs to be assumed to explain the experimentally observed diffraction data. In the fourth study the atomic structure of the gold induced atomic wires of the Si(111)-(5 x 2)-Au system was analyzed. The Patterson function of the in-plane SXRD data was compared to the Patterson functions derived from the atomic structure models proposed in literature (AN, EBH, KK) ruling out the AN-model. By comparison of the experimental out-of-plane SXRD data to the corresponding (calculated) SXRD data for the EBH- and the KK-model the KK-model could be identified as the most probable model. Additionally, a refined atomic structure model was derived for the KK-model. In conclusion, the results presented in this thesis clearly display the power of diffraction experiments especially in conjunction with the comparison to kinematic diffraction theory calculations and prove that they are applicable even to low dimensional (e.g., quasi-one-dimensional) structures. Furthermore, it was shown that diffraction experiments can deliver complementary information (e.g., information on deeper atomic layers) as compared to local probing methods (e.g. STM or Atomic Force Microscopy) and especially the combination of local probing methods, DFT calculations and diffraction experiments allows for the explanation of even very complicated material systems.

In this work the structural transitions of the rare earth oxides praseodymia and ceria grown on Si(111) are investigated. It is demonstrated that several of the rare earth intermediate phases can be stabilizied by post deposition annealing in ultra high vacuum. However, in most cases no single phased but coexisting species are observed. In addition, the surface structure and morphology of hex-Pr2O3(0001) as well as reduced ceria films are investigated.

This work investigates the initial growth of iron and iron oxides on Ag(001). Surface structure and morphology of both post deposition annealed Fe films (in UHV and O2 atmosphere) as well as reactive grown iron oxide films will be analyzed in detail by low energy electron diffraction (LEED) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The stoichiometry at the surface of the iron oxide films will be determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). The main focus of this work is to shed light on the question whether the growth of iron oxide films on Ag(001) is accompanied by the formation of strain reducing dislocation networks, or superstructures as found for other metal substrates in former studies. Here, we will distinguish between Fe films which were post deposition annealed in a thin O2 atmosphere and reactively grown iron oxide films.