Nanoscale periodicity in stripe-forming systems at high temperature: Au/W(110)

de la Figuera, J.; Leonard, F.; Stumpf, R.; Bartelt, N. C.; McCarty, K. F.

Nanoscale periodicity in stripe-forming systems at high temperature: Au/W(110)

Authors

Description

We observe using low-energy electron microscopy the self-assembly of monolayer-thick stripes of Au on W(110) near the transition temperature between stripes and the non-patterned (homogeneous) phase. We demonstrate that the amplitude of this Au stripe phase decreases with increasing temperature and vanishes at the order-disorder transition (ODT). The wavelength varies much more slowly with temperature and coverage than theories of stress-domain patterns with sharp phase boundaries would predict, and maintains a finite value of about 100 nm at the ODT. We argue that such nanometer-scale stripes should often appear near the ODT.
5 pages