title: Stacking-fault nucleation on Ir(111).
abstract: Variable temperature scanning tunneling microscopy experiments reveal that in Ir(111) homoepitaxy islands nucleate and grow both in the regular fcc stacking and in the faulted hcp stacking. Analysis of this effect in dependence on deposition temperature leads to an atomistic model of stacking-fault formation: The large, metastable stacking-fault islands grow by sufficiently fast addition of adatoms to small mobile adatom clusters which occupy in thermal equilibrium the hcp sites with a significant probability. Using parameters derived independently by field ion microscopy, the model accurately describes the results for Ir(111) and is expected to be valid also for other surfaces.
authors.affiliation: Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen, D-52056 Aachen, Germany. busse@physik.rwth-aachen.de
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Busse
authors.forename: Celia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Polop
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Karsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Albe
authors.forename: Udo
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Linke
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Michely