The Beilby layer

Abstract

In the course of an experimental study of the relationship between the photoelectric properties and structure of certain surfaces, crystalline zinc films of normal structure there repaired. In order to avoid pseudomorphic distortion of the zinc lattice, the films were deposited in vacuo on a polished copper substrate. To our surprise we were unable to obtain a zinc film exhibiting any organised structure, although such films, when deposited under identical conditions, but on glass or quarts, otherwise invariably yielded clear and well-defined electron diffraction patterns. Accordingly, the experiment described below there carried out with the object of inquiring into the nature of this phenomenon, and it seems to us that the results confer an objective reality upon the Beilby layer, which raises its existence from the realm of hypothesis to that of established fact. Experimental . The experiment counted in observing the development of an electron diffraction pattern during condensation of a metal vapour on a substrate, and the pattern changes occurring subsequent to completed deposition.