Scaling of diffusion-mediated island growth in iron-on-iron homoepitaxy

Abstract
An analysis of the island size and separation distributions of Fe islands, observed in the initial stages of growth in the homoepitaxy of Fe on Fe(001) whiskers, shows scaling properties recently predicted in nucleation and growth theories. A critical size of one atom, where islands greater than the critical size undergo irreversible nucleation, is supported by the measured scaling functions for the Fe on Fe system in the temperature range of 20–250 °C.
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