Adatom transport on strained Cu(001): surface crowdions.
Surface strain is often suggested as a means to control the self-assembled growth of nanostructures. Strain affects both the kinetics of nucleation and the free energies of formation of the desired nanostructure. It is demonstrated here that diffusion on some strained surfaces may be mediated by newly identified adatom transport mechanism: the formation and motion of a surface crowdion.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Wei
W
Xiao
P Alex
PA
Greaney
D C
DC
Chrzan