How Atomic Steps Modify Diffusion and Inter-adsorbate Forces: Empirical Evidence from Hopping Dynamics in Na/Cu(115)
We followed the collective atomic-scale motion of Na atoms on a vicinal Cu(115) surface within a time scale of pico- to nanoseconds using helium spin echo spectroscopy. The well-defined stepped structure of Cu(115) allows us to study the effect that atomic steps have on the adsorption properties, th...
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Published in | The journal of physical chemistry letters Vol. 6; no. 20; pp. 4165 - 4170 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
American Chemical Society
15.10.2015
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Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | We followed the collective atomic-scale motion of Na atoms on a vicinal Cu(115) surface within a time scale of pico- to nanoseconds using helium spin echo spectroscopy. The well-defined stepped structure of Cu(115) allows us to study the effect that atomic steps have on the adsorption properties, the rate for motion parallel and perpendicular to the step edge, and the interaction between the Na atoms. With the support of a molecular dynamics simulation we show that the Na atoms perform strongly anisotropic 1D hopping motion parallel to the step edges. Furthermore, we observe that the spatial and temporal correlations between the Na atoms that lead to collective motion are also anisotropic, suggesting the steps efficiently screen the lateral interaction between Na atoms residing on different terraces. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1948-7185 1948-7185 |
DOI: | 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01939 |