SCATTERING EXPERIMENTS WITH GOLD ON ROCK-SALT AND POTASSIUM-BROMIDE (100) SURFACES

We describe a set of experiments which was carried out in order to test basic assumptions and predictions of the kinetic nucleation theory developed by Frenkel, Zinsmeister and others. Measurements of the flight time and angular distribution of scattered atoms confirmed that they are accommodated on the surface. The surface lifetimes were found to be as predicted on KBr ((5±2) × 10-5 s) but not on NaCl ( < 5 × 10-5 s). An explanation for this discrepancy based on the determination of the fraction of gold dimers in the adatom beam is given. © 1979.