Microscopic aspects of the initial growth of metastable fcc iron on Au(111)

Abstract
We report on the microscopic aspects of the growth of Fe on the Au(111) surface observed with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Nucleation of triangular Fe islands is observed to occur at the corners of the herringbone reconstruction of the Au(111) surface, which are imaged with atomic resolution. STM measurements show the existence of a metastable close-packed face-centered-cubic (fcc) phase of Fe with a 0.288±0.01-nm in-plane nearest neighbor distance. Initial fcc film growth proceeds in a nonideal layer-by-layer growth mode in which new layers start before preceding layers are complete.

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