Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier and interface-limited decay in island kinetics on Ag(100)

Abstract

We investigate diffusion and decay of adatom and vacancy islands on Ag(100) between $\ensuremath{\approx}10$ and $\ensuremath{\approx}1000$ nm${}^{2}$ in size at room temperature by fast scanning tunneling microscopy. Adatom and vacancy islands decay in the diffusion and in the attachment limit, respectively. This adatom-driven kinetics confirms the existence of an Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier on Ag(100). The dependence of the diffusivity of vacancy islands on island size is consistent with a kink-dominated periphery diffusion mechanism. Quantitative differences to previously published work are discussed.