2006/06/29 by P. Süle, Péter Süle, Süle, Péter
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0606764
11 pages, 5 figures
openalex publication_date 2006/06/29 · arxiv created 2006/07/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2022/09/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Anomalous inter-layer atomic transport of deposited impurity atoms on Al(111)\nhas been found by constant temperature molecular dynamics simulations. The\nlow-energy deposition of Pt on Al(111) leads to oscillatory adsorbate-substrate\ninteraction and to a low-temperature ballistic injection of the deposited\nparticles to below the topmost layer. The ultrafast injection of a Pt atom\ncoincides with the ejection of a substrate atom to the surface (ballistic\nreplacement or exchange mechanism). This is in agreement with the experimental\nfindings in which thin film rich in Al has been found on the surface after\ndeposition of few MLs of Pt. We attribute the anomalous inter-layer transport\nto the size-mismatched impurity/host interaction and we point out the role of\natomic size mismatch in biasing towards intermixing. The deposition induced\nlow-temperature disordering of surface Al atoms with few transient Al adatoms\nhas also been observed. The ultrafast injection of the impurity particles to\nthe substrate is assisted by the transient out-of-plane and lateral circulating\nmotion of few surface atoms arranged nearly in a hexagonal symmetry. The atomic\ninjection of Pt can be regarded as a superexchange process driven by the\ntransient and collective motion of few surface atoms. A chaotic surface state\nassisted mechanism could also be a possible explanation of the unexpected\nphenomenon.\n