Binding energies between unlike atoms determined from island densities

Abstract

Measurements of island densities during submonolayer nucleation and growth can be used to determine adatom diffusion constants and effective binding energies between like atoms. While this “nucleation route” is well established for monocomponent systems, we here present a new procedure to determine effective binding energies between unlike atoms by analyzing island densities obtained from codeposition of different components. The procedure is based on a theory developed recently [M. Einax et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 016106 (2007); W. Dieterich et al., Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 161, 151 (2008)] and its practical applicability is demonstrated by generating experimental surrogate data by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations.