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

Quenched growth of nanostructured lead thin films on insulating substrates

Lead island films were obtained via vacuum vapor deposition on glass and ceramic substrates at 80 K. Electrical conductance was measured during vapor condensation and further annealing of the film up to room temperature. The resistance behavior during film formation and atomic force microscopy of annealed films were used as information sources about their structure. A model for the quenched growth, based on ballistic aggregation theory, was proposed. The nanostructure, responsible for chemiresistive properties of thin lead films and the mechanism of sensor response are discussed.Comment: 2 figures; accepted to Thin Solid Film

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 $\ell$ between islands in submonolayer regime and damping time $\tilde t$ of layer-by-layer growth oscillations on one dimension. The stochastic models are modified, allowing diffusion within interval $r$ upon deposited. It is found numerically that the mean separation and the damping time depend on the diffusion interval $r$, leading to that the damping time is related to the mean separation as ${\tilde t} \sim \ell^{4/3}$ for the WV model and ${\tilde t} \sim \ell^2$ 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

Extraordinary epitaxial alignment of graphene islands on Au(111)

Pristine, single-crystalline graphene displays a unique collection of remarkable electronic properties that arise from its two-dimensional, honeycomb structure. Using in-situ low-energy electron microscopy, we show that when deposited on the (111) surface of Au carbon forms such a structure. The resulting monolayer, epitaxial film is formed by the coalescence of dendritic graphene islands that nucleate at a high density. Over 95% of these islands can be identically aligned with respect to each other and to the Au substrate. Remarkably, the dominant island orientation is not the better lattice-matched 30^{\circ} rotated orientation but instead one in which the graphene [01] and Au [011] in-plane directions are parallel. The epitaxial graphene film is only weakly coupled to the Au surface, which maintains its reconstruction under the slightly p-type doped graphene. The linear electronic dispersion characteristic of free-standing graphene is retained regardless of orientation. That a weakly interacting, non-lattice matched substrate is able to lock graphene into a particular orientation is surprising. This ability, however, makes Au(111) a promising substrate for the growth of single crystalline graphene films

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

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

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

Factors influencing graphene growth on metal surfaces

Graphene forms from a relatively dense, tightly-bound C-adatom gas, when elemental C is deposited on or segregates to the Ru(0001) surface. Nonlinearity of the graphene growth rate with C adatom density suggests that growth proceeds by addition of C atom clusters to the graphene edge. The generality of this picture has now been studied by use of low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM) to observe graphene formation when Ru(0001) and Ir(111) surfaces are exposed to ethylene. The finding that graphene growth velocities and nucleation rates on Ru have precisely the same dependence on adatom concentration as for elemental C deposition implies that hydrocarbon decomposition only affects graphene growth through the rate of adatom formation; for ethylene, that rate decreases with increasing adatom concentration and graphene coverage. Initially, graphene growth on Ir(111) is like that on Ru: the growth velocity is the same nonlinear function of adatom concentration (albeit with much smaller equilibrium adatom concentrations, as we explain with DFT calculations of adatom formation energies). In the later stages of growth, graphene crystals that are rotated relative to the initial nuclei nucleate and grow. The rotated nuclei grow much faster. This difference suggests first, that the edge-orientation of the graphene sheets relative to the substrate plays an important role in the growth mechanism, and second, that attachment of the clusters to the graphene is the slowest step in cluster addition, rather than formation of clusters on the terraces