STM studies of nucleation and the initial stages of film growth

Abstract The present work is devoted to the application of STM to the study of the initial stages of film growth. The aim of such measurements is to learn more on the atomic processes during the overlayer deposition. So far, most results in this field have been obtained on metalkemiconductor systems. Under optimum resolution the adsorption sites in the low-coverage regime can be observed directly. For larger coverages the metal deposit very often condenses in form of three-dimensional islands, whose shape and size distribution may be determined. To understand the content of the STM images more clearly, theoretical concepts of STM are summarized. Experimental details are also given. The possibility of spectroscopic imaging with STM gives access to electronic effects during nucleation and film growth.