Nucleation and island growth during water adsorption at submonolayer coverages

Water is known to form islands during adsorption on single crystal metal surfaces at low temperatures (about 100 K). Employing the kinetic equations developed in the theory of crystal growth and molecular beam epitaxy, we evaluate the density of islands, the mean island size and the island-size distribution for the sub-monolayer regime of water adsorption. The results obtained are used to interpret the coverage dependence of the infrared absorbance of D2O on Al(001).