Nucleation-limited dewetting of ice films on Pt(111)

Quantifying dewetting phenomena at the microscopic level is the key to deciphering how a balance between kinetic and equilibrium effects determines ice-film morphology on Pt(111). Overcoming the difficulty of imaging nominally insulating ice multilayers with scanning tunneling microscopy allowed us...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2008-05, Vol.100 (18), p.186101-186101, Article 186101
Main Authors: Thürmer, Konrad, Bartelt, Norman C
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Quantifying dewetting phenomena at the microscopic level is the key to deciphering how a balance between kinetic and equilibrium effects determines ice-film morphology on Pt(111). Overcoming the difficulty of imaging nominally insulating ice multilayers with scanning tunneling microscopy allowed us to track the dewetting process. The results show that the rate at which new layers nucleate, and not surface diffusion, determines how fast individual crystallite shapes equilibrate. Applying nucleation theory to measured growth rates versus crystallite size, we obtain new bounds on the energetics both of step formation on ice and of the Pt-ice interface.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.100.186101