title: Island-size selectivity during 2D Ag island coarsening on Ag(111).
abstract: We report on the early stages of submonolayer Ag island coarsening on the Ag(111) surface carried out using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations for several temperatures. Our simulations were performed using a very large database of processes identified by their local environment and whose activation barriers were calculated using the semi-empirical interaction potentials based on the embedded-atom method. We find that during the early stages, coarsening proceeds as a sequence of selected island sizes, creating peaks and valleys in the island-size distribution. This island-size selectivity is independent of initial conditions and results from the formation of kinetically stable islands for certain sizes as dictated by the relative energetics of edge atom detachment/attachment processes together with the large activation barrier for kink detachment. Our results indicate that by tuning the growth temperature it is possible to enhance the island-size selectivity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.
authors.forename: Giridhar
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nandipati
authors.forename: Abdelkader
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kara
authors.forename: Syed Islamuddin
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.forename: Talat S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Rahman