title: Grains, growth, and grooving.
abstract: We report the in situ investigation of grain growth and grain boundary migration, performed with a variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscope (STM) on a polycrystalline gold film. Atomic step resolution allowed us to identify the individual grains and, thus, also the grain boundaries. Our special, thermal-drift-compensated STM design made it possible to follow the same sample area over large temperature intervals. In this way, we have directly observed grain boundary migration and grain growth. In a first quantitative analysis we correlate the observed, unexpected changes in surface roughness with the evolution of the grain and grain boundary configuration.
authors.affiliation: Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Rost
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Quist
authors.forename: J W M
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Frenken