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

TL;DR

This study uses low-energy electron microscopy to observe nanoscale stripe patterns of gold on tungsten near the phase transition, revealing that stripe wavelength remains finite and varies slowly with temperature, challenging existing theories.

Contribution

It provides new experimental evidence of nanoscale stripe behavior near the order-disorder transition, highlighting deviations from classical stress-domain pattern models.

Findings

Stripe amplitude decreases and vanishes at the ODT.

Stripe wavelength remains finite (~100 nm) at the transition.

Nanoscale stripes are likely common near the ODT.

Abstract

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.