Abstract
Self-diffusion of dimers on several metal fcc (001) surfaces is investigated by molecular-dynamics with the embedded-atom method potentials. Besides the conventional exchange mechanism, an exchange rotation mechanism is observed for the diffusion of dimers, in which the place replacement induced by one adatom of the dimer occurs among several substrate atoms and leads to a collective rotation around the another adatom. The frequency ratio of the occurrence of this mechanism to that of the conventional one can reach about 10% at high temperature on one of the surfaces studied. The comparison with the single-adatom diffusion shows that such rotation mechanism results from the complicated exchange mechanism of single adatom.
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