Eur. Phys. J. B (2016) 89: 215
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2016-70233-1

Regular Article

Numerical investigation of the submonolayer growth and relaxation of stepped Ag (110) and Au (110) surfaces

¹ Département de Physique, Université d’Abomey-Calavi, Abomey-Calavi, Benin
² Institut des Mathématiques et de Sciences Physiques, Dangbo Université d’Abomey-Calavi, 01 BP 613 Porto-Novo, Benin

^a e-mail: fhontinfinde@yahoo.fr

Received: 15 April 2016
Received in final form: 14 July 2016
Published online: 3 October 2016

Abstract

The terrace width distribution (TWD) as well as the adatom and island densities for some stepped fcc (110) surfaces with parallel and equidistant steps of equal stiffness are studied by means of kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Reliable energy barriers for surface diffusion are used. They have been calculated by means of many-body potentials derived within the second moment approximation to the tight-binding model. The effects of the temperature, atom deposition flux and surface diffusion on quantities of interest in the early stage of the surface evolution process have been singled out. In most cases, linear, logarithmic and power-law behaviors are recovered for the evolution of the step width and terrace defects. The TWD is well described by the Gaussian distribution (GD) in the domain of temperature investigated but deviates from the Generalized Wigner Distribution (GWD).