ISLAND DIFFUSION AND COARSENING ON METAL (100) SURFACES

The diffusion and coarsening of two-dimensional homoepitaxial islands on Cu(100) and Ag(100) surfaces have been studied at room temperature with time-sequenced scanning tunneling microscopy. Quantitative analys es of the dependence of island diffusion coefficient D vs the island s ide length L, D proportional to L-alpha, yield noninteger scaling expo nents which are consistent with island coalescence. Moreover, the near absence of island decay shows that the island diffusion occurs via ma ss transport along the island periphery.