Vacancy trapping during the homoepitaxial growth of noble metals
Abstract
Synchrotron x-ray scattering investigations, which reveal the surface morphology simultaneously with subsurface structure, observe the trapping of vacancies during low-temperature homoepitaxial growth on Cu(001), Ag(001), and Ag(111). Temperature-dependent studies (Appl. Phys. Lett. Dec02) of the (001) orientations show that vacancy incorporation begins below 160 K for Cu and below 200 K for Ag. These temperature ranges coincide with reentrant growth that occurs in both systems. For Ag(111), a pronounced pyramidal surface morphology emerges concomitantly with vacancy incorporation. The trapped vacancies are found to anneal at ∼270 K for Cu(001) and >350K for Ag(001). Because the evolving surface morphology and the incorporation of vacancies both depend on the kinetics at crystalline step edges, the consideration of vacancies is integrally important to a realistic description of epitaxial crystal growth. Funding from NSF and MU Res. Board. Synchrotrons & beam lines all supported through DoE: SUNY X3B2 beam line @ NSLS, MUCAT beam line (supported via Ames Lab.) @ APS.
- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003APS..MAR.P6008B