Computational investigations of the monolayer heteroepitaxial growth of Au on Ni(1 1 0)

By using an N-body potential scheme in the framework of the tight-binding second moment approximation, we have theoretically examined the growth mode of Au epitaxially grown on Ni(1 1 0). It is seen that the morphological structure of epitaxial growth is dominated by the concentration of depositing Au atoms and the mesoscopic strain. The results in the present study agree well with the experimental results reported before Pleth Nielsen et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71 (1993) 754; Surf. Sci. 307–309 (1994) 544; Phys. Rev. Lett. 74 (1995) 1159].