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The diffusion at atomic scale is of considerable interest as one of the critical processes in growth and evaporation as well as a probe of the forces at an atomically flat reconstructed surface. This atomic-scale migration is critical to investigate in strontium titanate (SrTiO 3 ) as it possesses the same status in oxide electronics as does silicon in ordinary electronics based on elemental semiconductors. Here we show that (001) terminated SrTiO 3  reconstructed surface is atomically unstable enough to allow atom-vacancy hopping at room temperature. In this work, SrTiO 3  (001) single crystal (7 × 2 × 0.5 mm) was sputtered (0.5 keV, 2.5 µA, 10 min) and annealed multiple times in ultra-high vacuum (UHV) and imaged using scanning tunneling microscope (STM). A relatively unstable surface was observed at low-temperature annealing and tip–surface interactions caused dislocation of mass at the surface. Both square and zig-zag nanolines were observed with atomic resolution where an atom-vacancy hopping was observed in a square diline while imaging at room temperature. The hopping was ceased when sample was annealed at higher temperature and a more compact network of nanolines was achieved. Graphic abstract

Atom-vacancy hopping in ultra-high vacuum at room temperature in SrTiO3 (001)