Decoration of facets on silver

Abstract

Abstract The facets produced on silver by thermal etching have been investigated in detail by examining decorated replicas of them in an electron microscope. Gold, condensed on the surface in vacuum, forms perfectly oriented sheets on the complex facets which contain many kink atoms. By contrast, the gold condenses on {100} and {111} planes as separated, randomly distributed, crystals with some preferred orientations. Atomic steps on these planes are decorated by preferential nucleation.