Reconstruction, step edges and self-organization on the Au 111/ surface

It has been shown recently that vicinal surfaces of Au 111.are unstable towards faceting. The period of the faceted morphology is very sensitive to the step edge atomic structure and can vary from about 10 up to 200 nm. We report a scanning tunneling microscopy STM.study demonstrating that the famous 22=63 reconstruction of the Au 111.surface interacts differently with both types of close-packed step edges that can be found on a 111. surface: the lines of discommensuration cross 1114step edges and are stopped by 1004ones. This observation could be essential in order to explain the drastic change in the faceted morphology of Au 111.vicinal surfaces with different step edges. Furthermore, it is promising in the way of realizing original nanostructures on these vicinal surfaces. Preliminary results are shown. q2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved