Nanoepitaxy on quasicrystal surfaces

TL;DR

This paper investigates nanoepitaxy on quasicrystal surfaces, showing how film growth is influenced by the substrate's non-periodic order, through experimental and simulation studies of oxygen chemisorption and adatom diffusion.

Contribution

It provides new experimental and simulation insights into film growth mechanisms on quasicrystalline surfaces, highlighting the role of substrate structure.

Findings

Oxygen chemisorption behavior on decagonal quasicrystal surface

Adatom diffusion characteristics on partially covered quasicrystal surface

Influence of quasicrystalline order on film orientation

Abstract

In film growth on quasicrystalline surfaces, the epitaxy-imposed ordering cannot compete with the stable bulk phases of thick films due to absence of translational order in the structure of the substrate. Energetically, this renders the formation of crystalline domains in the native structure of the film material more favorable while their global orientation is prescribed by the quasicrystalline order. We present experimental results on the dissociative chemisorption of oxygen on the decagonal surface of Al$_{70}$Co$_{15}$Ni$_{15}$ as well as molecular-dynamics simulations of the diffusion of adatoms on the surface of the partially covered substrate.