Vacancy formation in homoepitaxially grown Ag films and its effect on surface morphology
Abstract
Synchrotron x-ray diffraction was used to investigate the low-temperature homoepitaxial growth on Ag(001) and Ag(111) surfaces. For both orientations, the Ag films deposited at T=100K were observed to exhibit a 1% surface-normal compressive strain, indicating that an appreciable vacancy concentration (∼2%) is incorporated in the growing film. Concomitantly with the incorporation of vacancies, the growth on Ag(111) leads to the formation of pyramidlike structures with a non-Gaussian distribution of heights, whereas a similar effect was not observed for Ag(001).
Citation
Phys. Rev. B 66, 075418 (2002)