Diffusion of particles on a heterogeneous surface: A case of adsorption-induced surface reconstruction

The influence of surface reconstruction on diffusion of particles adsorbed on the surface is investigated in the framework of symmetrical four-position model. The analytical expressions for free energy and diffusion coefficients are obtained assuming the lateral interaction between particles is negligibly small.The critical behavior of the system is described by the Ising spin model. The coverage dependencies of the tracer, jump and chemical diffusion coefficients are calculated for some representative temperatures. The dependencies show clearly strong influence of the surface reconstruction on the thermodynamic and kinetic phenomena: diffusion coefficients become anisotropic on the reconstructed surface. To check the analytical results we have used Monte Carlo simulations of the diffusion on this lattice.