Bimodal growth of Au on SrTiO3 (001)

We have investigated the vapor phase growth of Au on SrTiO3 (001)-(2x1) substrates by UHV scanning tunneling microscopy. Submonolayer (ML) coverages below 300°C wet the surface as disordered metastable 2D islands. Beyond 0.75 ML fcc nanocrystals with a (111) interface are nucleated and ripen by dewe...

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Hlavní autoři: Silly, F, Castell, M
Médium: Journal article
Jazyk:English
Vydáno: American Physical Society 2006
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Shrnutí:We have investigated the vapor phase growth of Au on SrTiO3 (001)-(2x1) substrates by UHV scanning tunneling microscopy. Submonolayer (ML) coverages below 300°C wet the surface as disordered metastable 2D islands. Beyond 0.75 ML fcc nanocrystals with a (111) interface are nucleated and ripen by dewetting the surrounding layer. Some multiply twinned fivefold symmetric clusters are also created. Above 400°C dewetting occurs for all coverages and the surface is only populated by nanocrystals and fivefold clusters. A planar ground state configuration for small Au clusters and a higher interface energy for crystals than for wetted 2D ML films explains these results.