177 research outputs found
Magic Islands and Barriers to Attachment: A Si/Si(111)7x7 Growth Model
Surface reconstructions can drastically modify growth kinetics during initial
stages of epitaxial growth as well as during the process of surface
equilibration after termination of growth. We investigate the effect of
activation barriers hindering attachment of material to existing islands on the
density and size distribution of islands in a model of homoepitaxial growth on
Si(111)7x7 reconstructed surface. An unusual distribution of island sizes
peaked around "magic" sizes and a steep dependence of the island density on the
growth rate are observed. "Magic" islands (of a different shape as compared to
those obtained during growth) are observed also during surface equilibration.Comment: 4 pages including 5 figures, REVTeX, submitted to Physical Review
Atomistic mechanisms for the ordered growth of Co nano-dots on Au(788): comparison of VT-STM experiments and multi-scaled calculations
Hetero-epitaxial growth on a strain-relief vicinal patterned substrate has
revealed unprecedented 2D long range ordered growth of uniform cobalt
nanostructures. The morphology of a Co sub-monolayer deposit on a Au(111)
reconstructed vicinal surface is analyzed by Variable Temperature Scanning
Tunneling Microscopy (VT-STM) experiments. A rectangular array of nano-dots
(3.8 nm x 7.2 nm) is found for a particularly large deposit temperature range
lying from 60 K to 300 K. Although the nanodot lattice is stable at room
temperature, this paper focus on the early stage of ordered nucleation and
growth at temperatures between 35 K and 480 K. The atomistic mechanisms leading
to the nanodots array are elucidated by comparing statistical analysis of
VT-STM images with multi-scaled numerical calculations combining both Molecular
Dynamics for the quantitative determination of the activation energies for the
atomic motion and the Kinetic Monte Carlo method for the simulations of the
mesoscopic time and scale evolution of the Co submonolayer
Continuous and correlated nucleation during nonstandard island growth at Ag/Si(111)-7x7 heteroepitaxy
We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of submonolayer
heteroepitaxial growth of Ag on Si(111)-7x7 at temperatures from 420 K to 550 K
when Ag atoms can easily diffuse on the surface and the reconstruction 7x7
remains stable. STM measurements for coverages from 0.05 ML to 0.6 ML show that
there is an excess of smallest islands (each of them fills up just one
half-unit cell - HUC) in all stages of growth. Formation of 2D wetting layer
proceeds by continuous nucleation of the smallest islands in the proximity of
larger 2D islands (extended over several HUCs) and following coalescence with
them. Such a growth scenario is verified by kinetic Monte Carlo simulation
which uses a coarse-grained model based on a limited capacity of HUC and a
mechanism which increases nucleation probability in a neighbourhood of already
saturated HUCs (correlated nucleation). The model provides a good fit for
experimental dependences of the relative number of Ag-occupied HUCs and the
preference in occupation of faulted HUCs on temperature and amount of deposited
Ag. Parameters obtained for the hopping of Ag adatoms between HUCs agree with
those reported earlier for initial stages of growth. The model provides two new
parameters - maximum number of Ag atoms inside HUC, and on HUC boundary.Comment: LaTeX2e, BibTeX, 9 pages, 7 images, accepted to Phys. Rev.
Watch out for that tree! A tutorial on shortcut deforestation
Functional programmers are strong enthusiasts of modular solutions to programming problems. Since software characteristics such as readability or maintainability are often directly proportional to modularity, this programming style naturally contributes to the beauty of functional programs. Unfortunately, in return of this beauty we often sacrifice efficiency: modular programs rely, at runtime, on the creation, use and elimination of intermediate data structures to connect its components. In this tutorial paper, we study an advanced technique that attempts to retain the best of this two worlds: (i) it allows programmers to implement beautiful, modular programs (ii) it shows how to transform such programs, in a way that can be incorporated in a compiler, into programs that do not construct any intermediate structure.- (undefined
Impurity-induced diffusion bias in epitaxial growth
We introduce two models for the action of impurities in epitaxial growth. In
the first, the interaction between the diffusing adatoms and the impurities is
``barrier''-like and, in the second, it is ``trap''-like. For the barrier
model, we find a symmetry breaking effect that leads to an overall down-hill
current. As expected, such a current produces Edwards-Wilkinson scaling. For
the trap model, no symmetry breaking occurs and the scaling behavior appears to
be of the conserved-KPZ type.Comment: 5 pages(with the 5 figures), latex, revtex3.0, epsf, rotate, multico
Theoretical Insights into Vinyl Derivatives Adsorption on a Cu(100) Surface
This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b06142Here, we present a thorough theoretical study of the adsorption of acrolein (ACO), acrylonitrile (ACN), and acrylamide (ACA) on Cu(100) surface. For this purpose, we have used the density functional theory, imposing periodic boundary conditions to have a correct description of the electronic band structure of the metal and including dispersion forces through two different schemes: the D2 method of Grimme and the vdW-DF. We have found several adsorption geometries. In all of them, the vinyl group together with the amide (in ACA), ciano (in ACN), and carbonyl (in ACO) groups, is highly involved. The highest adsorption energy is found for acrylamide, followed by acrolein and the lowest for acrylonitrile (depending on the level of theory employed ∼1.2, 1.0, and 0.9 eV, respectively). We show that a strong coupling between the π electronic system (both occupied and virtual orbitals) and the electronic levels of the metal is mainly responsible of the chemisorption. As a consequence, electronic density is transferred from the surface to the molecule, whose carbon atoms acquire a partial sp3 hybridization. Lone-pair orbitals of the cyano, amide, and carbonyl groups also play a role in the interaction. The simulations and following analysis allow to disentangle the nature of the interaction, which can be explained on the basis of a simple chemical picture: donation from the occupied lone pair and π orbitals of the molecule to the surface and backdonation from the surface to the π∗ orbital of the molecule (π-backbonding)This work was partially supported by the project CTQ2016-76061-P of the Spanish Ministerio de Economı́a y Competitividad (MINECO). F.A.G. acknowledges the FPI grant associated with the project CTQ2013-43698-P (MINECO). Financial support from the MINECO through the “Marı́a de Maeztu” Program for Units of Excellence in R&D (MDM-2014-0377) is also acknowledge
A Simple Model for Anisotropic Step Growth
We consider a simple model for the growth of isolated steps on a vicinal
crystal surface. It incorporates diffusion and drift of adatoms on the terrace,
and strong step and kink edge barriers. Using a combination of analytic methods
and Monte Carlo simulations, we study the morphology of growing steps in
detail. In particular, under typical Molecular Beam Epitaxy conditions the step
morphology is linearly unstable in the model and develops fingers separated by
deep cracks. The vertical roughness of the step grows linearly in time, while
horizontally the fingers coarsen proportional to . We develop scaling
arguments to study the saturation of the ledge morphology for a finite width
and length of the terrace.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures; [email protected]
Why honey is effective as a medicine. 1. Its use in modern medicine
Honey has been used as a medicine for thousands of years and its curative properties are well documented. However, modern medicine turned its back on honey and it is only now, with the advent of multi-resistant bacteria, that the antibiotic properties of honey are being rediscovered
Large tunable valley splitting in edge-free graphene quantum dots on boron nitride
Coherent manipulation of binary degrees of freedom is at the heart of modern
quantum technologies. Graphene offers two binary degrees: the electron spin and
the valley. Efficient spin control has been demonstrated in many solid state
systems, while exploitation of the valley has only recently been started, yet
without control on the single electron level. Here, we show that van-der Waals
stacking of graphene onto hexagonal boron nitride offers a natural platform for
valley control. We use a graphene quantum dot induced by the tip of a scanning
tunneling microscope and demonstrate valley splitting that is tunable from -5
to +10 meV (including valley inversion) by sub-10-nm displacements of the
quantum dot position. This boosts the range of controlled valley splitting by
about one order of magnitude. The tunable inversion of spin and valley states
should enable coherent superposition of these degrees of freedom as a first
step towards graphene-based qubits
Patterned nanostructure in AgCo/Pt/MgO(001) thin film
The formation of patterned nanostructure in AgCo/Pt/MgO(001) thin film is
simulated by a technique of combining molecular dynamics and phase-field
theory. The dislocation (strain) network existing in Pt/MgO is used as a
template whose pattern is transferred to AgCo phase in spinodal decomposition,
resulting in regular arrays of Co islands that are attracted by the
dislocations. The influence of various factors, such as component concentration
and film thickness, is studied. It is found that the spinodal decomposition of
AgCo in this system is mainly characterized by a competition between a
surface-directed layer structure and the strain-induced patterned structure,
where the patterned Ag-Co structure only dominates in a small range near the
interface (less than 10 atomic layers). However, if the interlayer diffusion
can be minimized by controlling film growth conditions, it is shown that the
patterned structure can be formed throughout the entire film.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figure
- …