Reconstruction, step edges and self-organization on the Au(111) surface

It has been shown recently that vicinal surfaces of Au(lll) are unstable to wards faceting. The period of the faceted morphology is very sensitive to t he step edge atomic structure and can vary from about 10 up to 200 nm. We r eport a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) study demonstrating that the fa mous 22 x root 3 reconstruction of the Au(lll) surface interacts differentl y with both types of close-packed step edges that can be found on a (111) s urface: the lines of discommensuration cross (111) step edges and are stopp ed by (100) ones. This observation could be essential in order to explain t he drastic change in the faceted morphology of Au(111) vicinal surfaces wit h different step edges. Furthermore, it is promising in the way of realizin g original nanostructures on these vicinal surfaces. Preliminary results ar e shown. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.