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O: Oberflächenphysik

O 38: Struktur und Dynamik reiner Oberfl
ächen

O 38.3: Talk

Friday, March 28, 2003, 11:45–12:00, FOE/ANOR

Grains, Growth, and Grooving — •Marcel J. Rost, D.A. Quist, and J.W.M. Frenken — Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, P.O.Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

We report the first in-situ investigation of grain growth and grain boundary diffusion, performed with a variable-temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) on a polycrystalline gold film. Atomic step resolution allowed us to identify the individual grains and, thus, also the grain boundaries. The special, thermal drift-compensated design of our home-built STM made it possible to follow the same sample area of the film over large temperature intervals. In this way, we have directly observed grain boundary diffusion and grain growth. In a first quantitative analysis we correlate the observed, unexpected changes in surface roughness with the evolution of the grain and grain boundary configuration.