Fluctuations and growth phenomena in surface diffusion

Abstract

The development of new and innovative techniques over the last 40 years to study in a controlled way the adsorption of atoms on surfaces has led to increased interest in the problem of surface diffusion and to explosive publication growth in the field [1, 2]. The interest in the problem is driven both by questions of fundamental science and by the role of surface diffusion in controlling the growth of atomic scale structures, which can have potential technological applications. Atoms adsorbed on surfaces (at least in the submonolayer regime) provide a true realization of two-dimensional (2D) systems, so it is possible to test many theoretical predictions of dynamic phenomena in 2D statistical mechanics. At the same time, surface diffusion is the key process that controls the formation of nanostructures which can be used as building blocks in electronic nanodevices (i.e. lasers, switches, transistors etc.) of increasing speed and storage capacity. However within the limited space of this chapter it is not possible to give justice to the wide-range activity in the field and only selected topics covering different aspects of the problem will be presented. Still we hope even this limited view of surface diffusion will convey the tremendous progress and excitement in the field.