Low temperature Pb deposits on Cu(001): Monte Carlo structural studies

Monte Carlo simulations with adapted generalized Lennard-Jones potentials, already used to investigate the room temperature superstructures of Pb/Cu(0 01), enable us to derive the superstructures of low temperature (T = 160 K) deposited Pb on Cu(001). Two stable structures are found to agree with rec ent observations and are compared to the structures (root 61 x root 61)R ta n(-1)(5/6) and (5 x 5)R tan(-1)(3/4) earlier proposed by Vidali et al, On t he other hand, a comparative study of the energy per atom of one, two and t hree Pb monolayers deposited at low temperature over the annealed room temp erature dense Pb c(5 root2 x root2)R45 degrees structure on a Cu(001) subst rate shows evidence of the stability of Pb bilayers rather than Pb monolaye rs, in agreement with recent experiments. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B,V. Al l rights reserved.