Anomalous Fast Dynamics of Adsorbate Overlayers near an Incommensurate Structural Transition

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© 2013 American Physical Society (APS). http://www.aps.org/

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Volume Title

School of Science | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2013

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

126102/1-5

Series

Physical Review Letters, Volume 111, Issue 12

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of a compressively strained adsorbed layer on a periodic substrate via a simple two-dimensional model that admits striped and hexagonal incommensurate phases. We show that the mass transport is superfast near the striped-hexagonal phase boundary and in the hexagonal phase. For an initial step profile separating a bare substrate region (or “hole”) from the rest of a striped incommensurate phase, the superfast domain wall dynamics leads to a bifurcation of the initial step profile into two interfaces or profiles propagating in opposite directions with a hexagonal phase in between. This yields a theoretical understanding of the recent experiments for the Pb/Si(111) system.

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Keywords

heteroepitaxy, metal-semiconductor, adsorbate layers, dynamics

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Citation

Granato, Enzo & Ying, S. C. & Elder, K. R. & Ala-Nissilä, Tapio. 2013. Anomalous Fast Dynamics of Adsorbate Overlayers near an Incommensurate Structural Transition. Physical Review Letters. Volume 111, Issue 12. P. 126102/1-5. ISSN 0031-9007 (printed). DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.111.126102.