Incommensurate phases in adsorbed monolayers: structure and energy of domain walls

The properties of incommensurate films of domain-wall structure formed on the (1 0 0) plane of face centered cubic crystals are studied by Monte Carlo simulation. The wall energies, wall structure and the wall–wall interaction are determined for different types of domain walls occurring in films which form the c(2×2) registered structure. The systems characterized by different strength and corrugation of the surface potential and of different misfit between adsorbate and adsorbent are discussed. It is demonstrated that heavy as well as light walls are rather strongly localized. Moreover, it is shown that the incommensurate structure with crossing heavy walls has higher stability than a simple striped phase with parallel heavy walls.