Dilute Cu nanostructure stabilized by substrate-mediated interactions on Cu(111): Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations

Jolanta M. Rogowska and Mieczysław Maciejewski
Phys. Rev. B 74, 235402 – Published 1 December 2006

Abstract

The homoepitaxial growth of Cu on Cu(111) is studied by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations at temperature 15K and at coverage ranging from 0.005 to 0.04 monolayer (ML). It is shown that substrate-mediated interactions between adatoms lead to the formation of dilute nanostructures with an average nearest-neighbor distance a few times longer than an equilibrium adatom-adatom distance. Morphology of the nanostructure depends on coverage and annealing time. At coverage lower than 0.02ML short linear chains develop. During annealing the chains evolve into small dilute clusters. At coverage in the range of 0.020.04ML the Cu adatoms need 1020min to self-organize into dilute islands with local hexagonal structure. The simulation reveals the existence of energetically favorable adsorption sites at the step edge on the Cu(111) surface that stimulate aggregation of adatoms near the step.

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  • Received 12 March 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.74.235402

©2006 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Jolanta M. Rogowska

  • Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Wrocław, 50-204 Wrocław, pl. M. Borna 9, Poland

Mieczysław Maciejewski

  • Institute of Experimental Physics and Interfaculty Lab of Computer Nets and Software, University of Wrocław, 50-204 Wrocław, pl. M. Borna 9, Poland

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Vol. 74, Iss. 23 — 15 December 2006

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