OBSERVATION OF THE RELAXATION PROCESSES THAT FOLLOW ATOM REMOVAL FROMTHE AU(111) SURFACE WITH THE SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE

The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has been used to perturb distr ibution of surface stress, and to observe the resulting relaxation pro cesses in a time-resolved manner. Using nanoscale manipulation with th e STM, we generated a hole with a radius of about 10 angstrom on the 2 2 X square-root 3 reconstructed structure of Au(111) surface, and obse rved the rearrangement of the dislocation lines of the reconstructed s urface as a result of the formation of the hole. The area in which the pattern of dislocation lines is affected extends to about 80 angstrom from the site of the hole. The large range of the perturbation is mos t likely due to the long-range substrate-mediated elastic interaction of the hole with domain boundaries of the reconstructed surface. We fi nd that a structure involving a closed loop of dislocation lines is fo rmed at the initial stage of the relaxation process.