The role of adsorbed gases in metal on metal epitaxy

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Abstract
It is found that a variety of (deliberately) adsorbed gases influence in some manner the epitaxial growth of metals on metals. The adsorbed gases investigated included molecularly adsorbed CO and H2O and dissociatively adsorbed H, O, N, C, and S. The effects of adsorbed gases have been investigated in metal-on-metal epitaxial systems including Cu/Cu(100), Ni/Ni(100), Cu/Ni(100), Ni/Cu(100), Fe/Cu(100), Cu/Fe(100), Fe/Ag(100), and Fe/Fe(100). Although not all of the possible gas–metal combinations among these systems have been studied, enough have been to make the following generalizations. Around room temperature and above, these gases exhibit a strong tendency to ‘‘float out’’ to the growing surface, hardly reducing the extent of epitaxial ordering. All but the most strongly bound, e.g., C or N, have a strong tendency to float out even during epitaxy at temperatures as low as 100 K. The most strongly bound, e.g., C, N, or O, tend to suppress the agglomeration or interdiffusion (which otherwise occurs) when a monolayer of a transition metal is deposited on a noble metal at room temperature or above, e.g., Fe/Cu(100) or Ni/Cu(100). In some cases, these effects may be useful as a new tool for gaining improved control over epitaxial growth.

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