Low temperature Pb deposits on Cu(0 0 1): Monte Carlo structural studies

Monte Carlo simulations with adapted generalized Lennard-Jones potentials, already used to investigate the room temperature superstructures of Pb/Cu(0 0 1), enable us to derive the superstructures of low temperature (T=160 K) deposited Pb on Cu(0 0 1). Two stable structures are found to agree with recent observations and are compared to the structures (61×61)Rtan−1(5/6) and (5×5)Rtan−1(3/4) earlier proposed by Vidali et al. On the other hand, a comparative study of the energy per atom of one, two and three Pb monolayers deposited at low temperature over the annealed room temperature dense Pb c(52×2)R45° structure on a Cu(0 0 1) substrate shows evidence of the stability of Pb bilayers rather than Pb monolayers, in agreement with recent experiments.