Stress engineering at the nm scale
Spontaneously formed equilibrium nano-patterns with long-range order are observed in a variety of systems. Here, we report on a highly ordered stress-induced stripe pattern in a two-component, Pd-O, adsorbate monolayer on W(110), produced at high temperature and identically preserved at lower temperatures;
Menteş et al.,
Europhysics Letters 94, 38003 (2011).
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Spontaneous formation of periodic patterns is an example of nature's tendency towards order. A class of such structures is induced by surface stress, and has been widely observed on single crystal surfaces. It is well known that the formation of these equilibrium patterns is driven by a competition between interactions at different length scales. The forces in action, due to short-range near-neighbour and long-range dipolar interactions, are of the most general type resulting in very similar phenomena occurring also in magnetic and electrostatic systems. Here, we explore the possibility of controlling the thermal fluctuations by adding a second adspecies to an already stripe-forming system. |
The idea is based on the slow dynamics in a high-density binary lattice gas, which leads to a tendency towards glassy behaviour. In particular, we implement this by dosing small amounts of oxygen on submonolayer Pd/W(110). Retrieve article
Stress engineering at the nanometer scale: Two-component adlayer stripes; |
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