Abstract
Room-temperature irradiation of atomically flat gold films has been observed, using scanning tunnelling microscopy, to give rise to small faceted islands and pits (about 10 nm in lateral dimension and a few monolayers in height) which subsequently evolve by surface diffusion over a period of hours. The evolution on grains with different surface orientations is observed to be markedly different and, in particular, on what appears from symmetry consideration to be a (100) grain, the surface features are apparently in dynamic equilibrium under irradiation and subsequently thermally dissociate by the emission of small mobile clusters of atoms.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 151-157 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Philosophical Magazine B: Physics of Condensed Matter; Statistical Mechanics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Properties |
Volume | 70 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jul 1994 |
Externally published | Yes |