Heterogeneous energetic topographies generated by a diffusional mechanism

A. J. RAMIREZ-PASTOR; F. BULNES; F. NIETO

SURFACE SCIENCE

Elsevier

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2001 vol. 476 p. 161 - 170

0039-6028

In the present paper we studied the main characteristic features of surface energetic topographies generated via the evolution of a single adsorbed particle whose mobility strongly affect the adsorption energy of each visited site. This tracer changes its coordinates by means of activated jump to nearest neighbor sites modifying the adsorption energy of each visited site according to a very simple law. Therefore its evolution on the lattice step-by-step changes the energy surface, which in turn allows to obtain an heterogeneous trap substrate from an initially homogeneous surface. In the framework of the well known surface growth theory two different quantities (the mean site energy and the energy roughness of the substrate) have been monitored in order to characterize the process. The study of the time dependence of these quantities leads to the determination of the scaling behaviors represented by the scaling exponents. In particular, the obtained values for the scaling exponents suggest that the problem belongs to an unknown universality class.