Schmicker, D., Hibma, T., Edwards, K. A., Howes, P. B., MacDonald, John Emyr  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5504-1692, James, M. A., Breeman, M. and Barkema, G. T.
1997.
Low-temperature growth of thin Pb layers and the quantum size effect.
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter
9
(5)
, 969.
10.1088/0953-8984/9/5/004
|
Abstract
It is argued that the growth morphology of ultrathin metal films should fluctuate as a function of film thickness due to the quantum size effect. To verify this, the specularly reflected intensity of x-rays, electrons and He atoms has been measured during the growth of a thin Pb layer on top of an substrate at 100 K. Curiously enough, the expected variation is observed in the He atom and electron scattering data, but not in the x-ray reflectivity. Our explanation is that the differences in the heat of formation for successive atomic layers have a strong effect on the step density, but not on the occupancy of the layers at the low growth temperatures necessary to obtain layer-by-layer growth. This is backed up by the results of a Monte Carlo simulation.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Physics and Astronomy |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QC Physics |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | surfaces; interfaces; thin films |
| Publisher: | IOP Publishing |
| ISSN: | 0953-8984 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Oct 2022 10:48 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/45956 |
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