Structural characterisation and homoepitaxial growth on Cu(111)

A comprehensive study of the homoepitaxial MBE growth of Cu on Cu(111) is presented. This system displays a wealth of features and a large accumulation of morphological and structural defects. It is demonstrated that all of them can be ascribed to two basic characteristics of fcc-(111) faces: the presence of two threefold adsorption sites at the surface, which allows the formation of stacking faults, and the existence of high Ehrlich-Schwoebel barriers at steps, hindering interlayer diffusion. This behaviour, therefore, must be common during growth on compact metallic faces, and could have important implications for the preparation of low-dimensional heterostructures. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.