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Growth and microstructure of thin Ag, Cu, and Au films ultrahigh vacuum deposited onto single-crystalline mica(001) have been studied in situ by intrinsic stress measurements (ISM) and low-energy electron diffraction. Depending on the respective substrate temperature, three different modes of Vollmer–Weber (VW) growth can be clearly distinguished by ISM: (i) VW-type nucleation and subsequent columnar grain growth at low temperatures (110 K) where grain-boundary relaxation is the prevailing stress contribution, (ii) polycrystalline VW mode in a medium temperature range that is characterized by VW-type nucleation and grain growth in the continuous film and dominated by the capillarity stress, and (iii) epitaxial VW growth mode at temperatures above 470 K for Ag and 600 K for Cu and Au; here a novel stress mechanism due to the formation of ‘‘single-crystalline grain boundaries’’ appears during the network stage.

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