Instability driven fragmentation of nanoscale fractal islands.
Formation and evolution of fragmentation instabilities in fractal islands, obtained by deposition of silver clusters on graphite, are studied. The fragmentation dynamics and subsequent relaxation to the equilibrium shapes are controlled by the deposition conditions and cluster composition. Sharing common features with other materials' breakup phenomena, the fragmentation instability is governed by the length-to-width ratio of the fractal arms.
Bréchignac
C
C
Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, C.N.R.S. Bâtiment 505, UPS, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France.
Cahuzac
Ph
P
Carlier
F
F
Colliex
C
C
Leroux
J
J
Masson
A
A
Yoon
B
B
Landman
Uzi
U