The atomistic growth of silver clusters on a Si(111)7 × 7 surface

Abstract

We repot here the growth of silver nanostructures on a Si(111)7 × 7 surface using scanning tunneling microscopy(STM). It is found that the each Ag atom hops each half unit cells of 7 × 7 structure and forms dimers, trimers, tetramers and pentamers inside the half unit cells. We estimate intercell hopping rates of (1.39±0.16) × 10−4 1/s for trimers and (1.33±0.14) × 10−31/s for tetramers. We also observed the intracel motion of trimers.