Structural characterisation and homoepitaxial growth on Cu(111)

A comprehensive study of the homoepitaxial MBE growth of Cu on Cu(111) is presented. This system displays a wealth of features and a large accumulation of morphological and structural defects. It is demonstrated that all of them can be ascribed to two basic characteristics of fcc-(111) faces: the presence of two threefold adsorption sites at the surface, which allows the formation of stacking faults, and the existence of high Ehrlich–Schwoebel barriers at steps, hindering interlayer diffusion. This behaviour, therefore, must be common during growth on compact metallic faces, and could have important implications for the preparation of low-dimensional heterostructures.