Coalescence induced rapid decay of adatom and vacancy islands on Cu(111)

The breakdown of the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier when the distance between st ep edges becomes smaller than a critical distance has a significant effect on the coarsening of surfaces. Here it is shown that the large mass flow al ong the perimeter of islands and the corresponding changes of the shape dur ing coalescence events can induce a rapid decay of islands in the second la yer and of vacancy islands in the layer beneath. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.