105 research outputs found
Fast coarsening in unstable epitaxy with desorption
Homoepitaxial growth is unstable towards the formation of pyramidal mounds
when interlayer transport is reduced due to activation barriers to hopping at
step edges. Simulations of a lattice model and a continuum equation show that a
small amount of desorption dramatically speeds up the coarsening of the mound
array, leading to coarsening exponents between 1/3 and 1/2. The underlying
mechanism is the faster growth of larger mounds due to their lower evaporation
rate.Comment: 4 pages, 4 PostScript figure
Atomic step motion during the dewetting of ultra-thin films
We report on three key processes involving atomic step motion during the
dewetting of thin solid films: (i) the growth of an isolated island nucleated
far from a hole, (ii) the spreading of a monolayer rim, and (iii) the zipping
of a monolayer island along a straight dewetting front. Kinetic Monte Carlo
results are in good agreement with simple analytical models assuming
diffusion-limited dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Numerical test of the damping time of layer-by-layer growth on stochastic models
We perform Monte Carlo simulations on stochastic models such as the
Wolf-Villain (WV) model and the Family model in a modified version to measure
mean separation between islands in submonolayer regime and damping time
of layer-by-layer growth oscillations on one dimension. The
stochastic models are modified, allowing diffusion within interval upon
deposited. It is found numerically that the mean separation and the damping
time depend on the diffusion interval , leading to that the damping time is
related to the mean separation as for the WV model
and for the Family model. The numerical results are in
excellent agreement with recent theoretical predictions.Comment: 4 pages, source LaTeX file and 5 PS figure
Spectroscopic evidence for a gold-coloured metallic water solution
Insulating materials can in principle be made metallic by applying pressure. In the case of pure water, this is estimated1 to require a pressure of 48 megabar, which is beyond current experimental capabilities and may only exist in the interior of large planets or stars2–4. Indeed, recent estimates and experiments indicate that water at pressures accessible in the laboratory will at best be superionic with high protonic conductivity5, but not metallic with conductive electrons1. Here we show that a metallic water solution can be prepared by massive doping with electrons upon reacting water with alkali metals. Although analogous metallic solutions of liquid ammonia with high concentrations of solvated electrons have long been known and characterized6–9, the explosive interaction between alkali metals and water10,11 has so far only permitted the preparation of aqueous solutions with low, submetallic electron concentrations12–14. We found that the explosive behaviour of the water–alkali metal reaction can be suppressed by adsorbing water vapour at a low pressure of about 10−4 millibar onto liquid sodium–potassium alloy drops ejected into a vacuum chamber. This set-up leads to the formation of a transient gold-coloured layer of a metallic water solution covering the metal alloy drops. The metallic character of this layer, doped with around 5 × 1021 electrons per cubic centimetre, is confirmed using optical reflection and synchrotron X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies
Genome‑wide insights into population structure and host specifcity of Campylobacter jejuni
The zoonotic pathogen Campylobacter jejuni is among the leading causes of foodborne diseases worldwide. While C. jejuni colonises many wild animals and livestock, persistence mechanisms enabling the bacterium to adapt to host species' guts are not fully understood. In order to identify putative determinants influencing host preferences of distinct lineages, bootstrapping based on stratified random sampling combined with a k-mer-based genome-wide association was conducted on 490 genomes from diverse origins in Germany and Canada. We show a strong association of both the core and the accessory genome characteristics with distinct host animal species, indicating multiple adaptive trajectories defining the evolution of C. jejuni lifestyle preferences in different ecosystems. Here, we demonstrate that adaptation towards a specific host niche ecology is most likely a long evolutionary and multifactorial process, expressed by gene absence or presence and allele variations of core genes. Several host-specific allelic variants from different phylogenetic backgrounds, including dnaE, rpoB, ftsX or pycB play important roles for genome maintenance and metabolic pathways. Thus, variants of genes important for C. jejuni to cope with specific ecological niches or hosts may be useful markers for both surveillance and future pathogen intervention strategies.Peer Reviewe
\AA ngstrom depth resolution with chemical specificity at the liquid-vapor interface
The determination of depth profiles across interfaces is of primary
importance in many scientific and technological areas. Photoemission
spectroscopy is in principle well suited for this purpose, yet a quantitative
implementation for investigations of liquid-vapor interfaces is hindered by the
lack of understanding of electron-scattering processes in liquids. Previous
studies have shown, however, that core-level photoelectron angular
distributions (PADs) are altered by depth-dependent elastic electron scattering
and can, thus, reveal information on the depth distribution of species across
the interface. Here, we explore this concept further and show that the
anisotropy parameter characterizing the PAD scales linearly with the average
distance of atoms along the surface normal. This behavior can be accounted for
in the low-collision-number regime. We also show that results for different
atomic species can be compared on the same length scale. We demonstrate that
atoms separated by about 1~\AA~along the surface normal can be clearly
distinguished with this method, achieving excellent depth resolution.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Dissociation of O2 molecules on strained Pb(111) surfaces
By performing first-principles molecular dynamics calculations, we
systematically simulate the adsorption behavior of oxygen molecules on the
clean and strained Pb(111) surfaces. The obtained molecular adsorption
precursor state, and the activated dissociation process for oxygen molecules on
the clean Pb surface are in good agreements with our previous static
calculations, and perfectly explains previous experimental observations [Proc.
Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104, 9204 (2007)]. In addition, we also study the
influences of surface strain on the dissociation behaviors of O2 molecules. It
is found that on the compressed Pb(111) surfaces with a strain value of larger
than 0.02, O2 molecules will not dissociate at all. And on the stretched
Pb(111) surfaces, O2 molecules become easier to approach, and the adsorption
energy of the dissociated oxygen atoms is larger than that on the clean Pb
surface
How metal films de-wet substrates - identifying the kinetic pathways and energetic driving forces
We study how single-crystal chromium films of uniform thickness on W(110)
substrates are converted to arrays of three-dimensional (3D) Cr islands during
annealing. We use low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM) to directly observe a
kinetic pathway that produces trenches that expose the wetting layer. Adjacent
film steps move simultaneously uphill and downhill relative to the staircase of
atomic steps on the substrate. This step motion thickens the film regions where
steps advance. Where film steps retract, the film thins, eventually exposing
the stable wetting layer. Since our analysis shows that thick Cr films have a
lattice constant close to bulk Cr, we propose that surface and interface stress
provide a possible driving force for the observed morphological instability.
Atomistic simulations and analytic elastic models show that surface and
interface stress can cause a dependence of film energy on thickness that leads
to an instability to simultaneous thinning and thickening. We observe that
de-wetting is also initiated at bunches of substrate steps in two other
systems, Ag/W(110) and Ag/Ru(0001). We additionally describe how Cr films are
converted into patterns of unidirectional stripes as the trenches that expose
the wetting layer lengthen along the W[001] direction. Finally, we observe how
3D Cr islands form directly during film growth at elevated temperature. The Cr
mesas (wedges) form as Cr film steps advance down the staircase of substrate
steps, another example of the critical role that substrate steps play in 3D
island formation
Coarsening Dynamics of Crystalline Thin Films
The formation of pyramid-like structures in thin-film growth on substrates
with a quadratic symmetry, e.g., {001} surfaces, is shown to exhibit
anisotropic scaling as there exist two length scales with different time
dependences. Analytical and numerical results indicate that for most
realizations coarsening of mounds is described by an exponent n=0.2357.
However, depending on material parameters, n may lie between 0 (logarithmic
coarsening) and 1/3. In contrast, growth on substrates with triangular
symmetries ({111} surfaces) is dominated by a single length scale and an
exponent n=1/3.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 3 figure
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