Ordered growth of cobalt nanostructures on a Au(111) vicinal surface: nucleation mechanisms and temperature behavior

We study the growth of submonolayer coverage of cobalt on the Au(788) vicinal surface. Due to a large unit cell reconstruction, this surface is spontaneously patterned in two dimensions at a nanometer scale. We show that the cobalt growth on this substrate displays a long-range ordered nanodots array in a wide temperature range. The atomic processes responsible for such an organized growth are discussed using STM images with atomic resolution and chemical contrast. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.