Surface phase transitions induced by electron mediated adatom-adatom interaction |
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Authors: | Shi Junren Wu Biao Xie X C Plummer E W Zhang Zhenyu |
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Institution: | Condensed Matter Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA. |
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Abstract: | We propose that the indirect adatom-adatom interaction mediated by the conduction electrons of a metallic surface is responsible for the sqrt3]xsqrt3]<==>3x3 structural phase transitions observed in Sn/Ge (111) and Pb/Ge (111). When the indirect interaction overwhelms the local stress field imposed by the substrate registry, the system suffers a phonon instability, resulting in a structural phase transition in the adlayer. Our theory is capable of explaining all the salient features of the sqrt3]xsqrt3]<==>3x3 transitions observed in Sn/Ge (111) and Pb/Ge (111), and is in principle applicable to a wide class of systems whose surfaces are metallic before the transition. |
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