Ab-Initio Simulation Laboratory

Using scanning-tunneling microscopy and first-principles total-energy calculations, we have considered the structural properties of the so-called doped clusters formed by depositing additional 0.05 monolayer of In onto the 4x3-periodicity magic-cluster array in the In/Si(100) system. Low-temperature STM observations have revealed that most of the doped clusters have an asymmetric shape. According to the total-energy calculations, these clusters have plausibly Si6In8 composition. In such a cluster, one of the In atoms is mobile and can hop between four equivalent sites within a cluster. The hopping between sites, located in the different 2ax3a halves of the cluster, is characterized by the barrier of about 0.7 eV, and this hopping becomes frozen at 55 K. In contrast, the hopping between the neighboring sites within the same cluster half persists up to very low temperatures, as the barrier height here is an order of magnitude lower. Due to the above structural properties, the doped asymmetric Si6In8 cluster can be treated as a promising switch, logic gate, or memory cell of the atomic-scale size.

Basing on the results of the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) observations and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, the structural model for the Cu magic clusters formed on Si(1 1 1)7 x 7 surface has been proposed. Using STM, composition of the Cu magic clusters has been evaluated from the quantitative analysis of the Cu and Si mass transport occurring during magic cluster converting into the Si(1 1 1)’5.5 x 5.5’-Cu reconstruction upon annealing. Evaluation yields that Cu magic cluster accommodates similar to 20 Cu atoms with similar to 20 Si atoms being expelled from the corresponding 7 x 7 half unit cell (HUC). In order to fit these values, it has been suggested that the Cu magic clusters resemble fragments of the Cu2Si-silicide monolayer incorporated into the rest-atom layer of the Si(1 1 1)7 x 7 HUCs. Using DFT calculations, stability of the nineteen models has been tested of which five models appeared to have formation energies lower than that of the original Si(1 1 1)7 x 7 surface. The three of five models having the lowest formation energies have been concluded to be the most plausible ones. They resemble well the evaluated composition and their counterparts are found in the experimental STM images. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The adatoms, dimers and rest atoms in the three outermost atomic layers of the Si(111)-(7 x 7) surface are directly imaged with glancing Kikuchi electron holography. The applicability of Kikuchi electron holography to complicated multiple-emitter surfaces is evident. The three-dimensional relative positions of atoms on the Si(111)-(7 x 7) surface are in good accordance with the LEED-optimized DAS model.

We propose in this paper a theoretical model to investigate surface self-diffusion of single adatoms on the face-centered-cubic metals. Calculations are performed on the channeled (110), densely packed (111) and loosely packed (001) surfaces of iridium at temperature T = 800 K. Three realistic model potentials, Embedded Atom method, Sutton-Chen and Rosato-Guillope-Legrand potentials, are applied to describe the interatomic interaction of the adatom/substrate systems. These potentials all involve a few empirical fittings of bulk properties of solid which incorporate with many-body effects. With these potentials, conventional molecular dynamics (MD) is employed to obtain trajectories of the atoms. On the (111) plane, via the Einstein relation, the estimated random walk exponential prefactors and activation energies do exhibit Arrhenius behavior, which are in reasonably good agreement with the experimental results. On the (001) and (110) faces, a number of theoretical evidences for atomic diffusion by exchange mechanism of the adatom with a surface atom are presented, which are again in fairly good agreement with the experiments. In addition, an examination of the exchange diffusion characteristics on several systems (Cu, Rh and Pt) is also presented.

Whether photoemission probes surface or bulk properties has long been a topic of interest and debate. This work employs angle-resolved photoemission to map the electronic structure of Ag films of varying thicknesses prepared on Si(111). As expected, the discrete quantum-well states or subbands observed at small thicknesses merge into a continuum as the film thickness approaches the bulk limit. However, a number of discrete states remain isolated within gaps or pockets in the bulk continuum. While these Ag surface states have been predicted previously by calculations, most are experimentally identified herein only for the first time. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2009

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