Ordered nucleation of Ni and Au islands on Au(111) studied by scanning tunneling microscopy

Abstract

The scanning tunneling microscope reveals that Ni deposited on Au(111) at room temperature forms regular arrays of two-dimensional islands. The islands grow with spacing 73 Å in rows 140 Å apart at sites determined by the Au(111) ‘‘herringbone’’ reconstruction. This nucleation at evenly spaced sites yields islands with a narrow size distribution. The apparent Ni island height (1.9 Å) is bias-independent and agrees with a hard-sphere model of pseudomorphic Ni/Au(111). The behavior of Ni is contrasted with Au deposited on Au(111), for which far fewer islands are formed.

Microscopic view of epitaxial metal growth: nucleation and aggregation

“…ÐÐÐÐ 41 The case of Au (1 1 1) auto-epitaxy is less clear. In a study by Chambliss et al [242] too few islands formed at room temperature precluding statistically signi®cant statements. In contrast, an earlier work found nucleation at elbows.…”

Adsorption changes of cyclohexyl isothiocyanate on gold surfaces

“…The STM image in Fig. 7a shows well-known herringbone surface reconstruction of bare Au(1 1 1) surface having a ($22 Â p 3) unit cell, which strongly implies the clean Au(1 1 1) surface [22][23][24]. The adsorption of CHT molecules having an active thiol (R-SH) functional group on clean Au(1 1 1) surfaces led to the formation of well-ordered CHT SAMs containing vacancy islands (VIs), as shown in Fig.…”

Innovative Measurement Techniques in Surface Science

“…The observed periodicity of 28 nm AE 0.5 nm corresponds to the distance of the elbows in the herringbone reconstruction [34] (see model in right inset) found on large terraces. [35] The herringbone structure arises from a reconstruction of the Au(111) surface which contains a tighter arrangement of Au atoms than the hexagonal close packing and a large unit cell. It gives rise to reconstruction lines arranged in a herringbone structure with straight sections and elbows.…”