Building uniform and long-range ordered nanostructures on a surface by nucleation on a point defect array

International Workshop on Self-Organized Nanostructures, Cargese, FRANCE, JUL 17-23, 2005International audienceWe present both experimental and simulated results of ordered growth of cobalt nano-islands on a Au(111) vicinal template. Firstly, the temperature range for ordered growth and the islands size distributions are investigated by a rate equation model and kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations. Secondly, the incidence of the surface structure on the growth of cobalt is studied in detail by means of variable temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments and KMC simulations. The underlying atomic processes responsible for the ordered growth are discussed