ADSORPTION AND GROWTH ON NANOSTRUCTURED SURFACES

The relaxation of surface stress or strain constitutes an important me chanism in the formation (self-assembly) and ordering of nanostructure s at surfaces. These stable, pre-patterned surfaces can further be use d as templates for the fabrication of regularly nanostructured metalli c or molecular films. Under appropriate conditions preferential nuclea tion or selective growth can lead to the replication of the template p attern. Two examples are discussed: The deposition of cobalt on the re constructed Au(111)-(similar to 22 x root 3) surface and the adsorptio n of molecular films on the Cu(110)-(2 x 1)O stripe phase. (C) 1998 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.