Lp. Nielsen et al., COMBINED STM AND RBS INVESTIGATION OF THE NUCLEATION AND GROWTH OF AUON NI(110) - ALLOYING AND DEALLOYING, Surface review and letters, 3(5-6), 1996, pp. 1713-1719
We have performed in-situ Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and Ruth
erford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RES) investigations of the room-te
mperature (RT) growth of Au on Ni(110). At low coverages, we observe t
he formation of a Au/Ni surface alloy, even though Au is immiscible wi
th bulk Ni at RT. At a critical Au coverage of theta(Au) = 0.4 ML (mon
olayer), we observe a ''dealloying'' phase transition where 0.16 ML of
Au is ''popping'' out of the alloyed surface layer and nucleates into
[001]-directed dimer/trimer Au chains. Increasing the Au coverage fur
ther causes the nucleation and growth of more [001]-directed chains, i
.e. their mutual distance in the [1 (1) over bar 0] direction decrease
s until the chain structure finally saturates in a p(5 x 3) structure
at theta(Au) = 0.93 ML. The formation of a surface alloy at low covera
ge is supported by theoretical calculations within the Effective-Mediu
m Theory (EMT), and an atomic model for the [001]-directed Au chains i
s developed from a detailed interplay between experiments and theoreti
cal calculations.