title: Formation and healing of micrometer-sized channel networks on highly mobile Au(111) surfaces.
abstract: Practical protocols are presented to reproducibly prepare micrometer-sized Au(111) substrates. Au(111) terraces of micrometer dimensions and atomic smoothness were crystallized by flame-annealing vacuum-deposited gold films on glass and on millimetric amorphous gold shots. Gold films and shots that were slowly cooled in a moderately applied stream of nitrogen gas exhibited large and stable crystal surfaces with Au(111) morphologies. Similarly, flame-annealed gold samples cooled with another protocol--in much rougher streams of nitrogen gas--produced morphologically unstable and highly mobile Au(111) layers. Within the first hour after preparation, however, rapid microscale restructuring in the layers produced complex morphologies of hexagonal channel networks and islands that were predominantly triangular. These channeled gold layers fused slowly in the following hours, with velocities of 0.01-0.2 A/s, as quantified by digital image correlation (DIC). Atomically smooth, stable, and predominantly triangular Au(111) terraces on the scale of micrometers were observed approximately 24 h after the sample preparations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA. lauermat@physics.ucsb.edu
authors.forename: Matthias E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Lauer
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jungmann
authors.forename: Johannes H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kindt
authors.forename: Sergei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Magonov
authors.forename: Jurgen-H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Fuhrhop
authors.forename: Emin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Oroudjev
authors.forename: Helen G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Hansma
mesh_terms: D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D006358:Hot Temperature; D020527:Microscopy, Scanning Probe; D013499:Surface Properties; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D006046:Gold