Non-arrhenius behavior of the island density in metal heteroepitaxy: Co on Cu(001).

We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of island nucleation and growth in the deposition of Co on Cu(001)-a prototype for understanding heteroepitaxial growth involving intermixing. Experimentally, ion scattering is employed. Using density-functional theory, we obtain energy barriers for the various elementary processes and incorporate these into a kinetic Monte Carlo program to simulate the heteroepitaxial growth. Both the simulations and the experiments show a unique N-shape dependence of the island density on temperature that stems from the interplay and competition of the different processes involved.