Abstract:
Using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations and a bond-counting ansatz, thermal stability and diffusion of an adatom island on a crystal surface are studied. At low temperatures, the diffusion constant D is found to decrease for a wide range of island sizes like \(D \propto {N^{ - \alpha }}\), where α is close to one, N being the number of adatoms in the cluster. By heating up the surface, the system undergoes a phase transition above which the island disappears. Characteristics of that transition are discussed.
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Received 20 January 1999
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Müller, T., Selke, W. Stability and diffusion of surface clusters. Eur. Phys. J. B 10, 549–553 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050885
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050885