Brownian Motion of Vacancy Islands on Ag(111)

Karina Morgenstern, Georg Rosenfeld, Bene Poelsema, George Comsa

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178 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

The motion of monatomic deep vacancy islands on crystal surfaces is studied both theoretically and experimentally. We develop a new theoretical model which allows us to deduce the microscopic mechanism of mass transport from measuring the diffusion coefficients of the vacancy islands as a function of their size. This model is applied to experimental results obtained with a fast scanning tunneling microscope on Ag(111) at room temperature. The observed scaling is consistent with a mechanism where the microscopic mass transport is dominated by diffusion of adatoms across the vacancy island rather than along the island boundary.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2058-2061
Number of pages4
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume74
Issue number11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1995

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