New relaxation phenomena in the outer atomic layers of Fe{211}

A low-energy electron diffraction analysis of a {211} surface of body-centered cubic iron reveals relaxations in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the surface plane. Both relaxations alternate in successive layers. The perpendicular relaxation goes from contraction of 10.5% to expansion of 5% to contraction of 1%. The parallel relaxation goes from a shift of the first layer of 0.24Å (10% of the nearest neighbor distance) toward more symmetrical registration with the second layer, to an opposite shift of 0.035 Å of the second layer with respect to the third.