Related papers: Ab initio study of step formation and self-diffusi…
Reactive dopant atoms embedded in inert host metal surfaces define the active sites in single-atom alloys (SAAs), yet SAA synthesis remains challenging. To address this, we elucidate how dopant adatoms deposited on Cu and Ag surfaces become…
Well-ordered stepped semiconductor surfaces attract intense attention owing to the regular arrangements of their atomic steps that makes them perfect templates for the growth of one- dimensional systems, e.g. nanowires. Here, we report on…
The decay of hexagonal Ag adatom islands on top of larger Ag adatom islands on a Ag(111) surface is followed by a fast scanning tunneling microscope. Islands do not always show the expected increase in decay rate with decreasing island…
Step meandering during growth of gallium nitride (0001) surface is studied using kinetic Monte Carlo method. Simulated growth process, conducted in N-rich conditions are therefore controlled by Ga atoms surface diffusion. The model employs…
The diffusion of two dimensional adatom islands (up to 100 atoms) on Cu(111) has been studied, using the self-learning Kinetic Monte Carlo (SLKMC) method [1]. A variety of multiple- and single-atom processes are revealed in the simulations,…
We develop a theory of nucleation on top of two-dimensional islands bordered by steps with an additional energy barrier $\Delta E_S$ for descending atoms. The theory is based on the concept of the residence time of an adatom on the…
With a Si(001) vicinal surface in mind, we study step wandering instability on a vicinal surface with an anisotropic surface diffusion whose orientation dependence alternates on each consecutive terrace. In a conserved system step wandering…
Burton-Cabrera-Frank (BCF) theory has proven to be a versatile framework to relate surface morphology and dynamics during crystal growth to the underlying mechanisms of adatom diffusion and attachment at steps. For an important class of…
(See the complete abstract within the thesis in both English and German versions) In this thesis, the process conditions of the epitaxial graphene growth through a socalled polymer-assisted sublimation growth method are minutely…
Using total energy calculations, based on interaction potentials from the embedded atom method, we show that the presence of the tip not only lowers the barrier for lateral diffusion of the adatom towards it, but also shifts the…
We report on early stages of submonolayer Ag island coarsening on Ag(111) surface at room temperature ($300$ K) carried out using realistic kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations. We find that during early stages, coarsening proceeds as a…
This paper investigates faceting mechanisms induced by electromigration in the regime where atomic steps are transparent. For this purpose we study several vicinal orientations by means of in-situ (optical diffraction, electronic…
Electromigration-induced flow of islands and voids on the Cu(001) surface is studied at the atomic scale. The basic drift mechanisms are identified using a complete set of energy barriers for adatom hopping on the Cu(001) surface, combined…
The stability of interfaces and the mechanisms of thin film growth on semiconductors are issues of central importance in electronic devices. These issues can only be understood through detailed study of the relevant microscopic processes.…
Ab initio calculations based on the density-functional pseudopotential approach have been used to study the fully relaxed structure, the electron distribution and the electronic density of states of (001) terraces, steps, corners and…
Using a simple atomistic model of anharmonic nearest-neighbors interaction, we have calculated the step energies of strained hexagonal monolayer islands. These have been found to decrease with the absolute value of the misfit due to the…
We present Monte Carlo simulations for the size and temperature dependence of the diffusion coefficient of adatom islands on the Cu(100) surface. We show that the scaling exponent for the size dependence is not a constant but a decreasing…
Growth of atomic indium chains - 1D islands - on the Si(100)-2x1 surface was observed by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) at room temperature and simulated by means of a kinetic Monte Carlo method. Density of indium islands and island…
In our earlier study of Ag island coarsening on Ag(111) surface using kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations we found that during early stages coarsening proceeds as a sequence of selected island sizes resulting in peaks and valleys in the…
We report photoemission experiments revealing the valence electron spectral function of Mn, Fe, Co and Ni atoms on the Ag(100) surface. The series of spectra shows splittings of higher energy features which decrease with the filling of the…