Physical Review Letters · 1985 · 438 citations · 14 references
Natural SciencesMaterials SciencePhysicsCondensed Matter PhysicsCrystal StructureSolid State PhysicsCrystallographyDiffractionStacking FaultsSurface CrystallographyWave DiffractionX-ray CrystallographyCompressionSoliton TheorySolitonsStacking Faults In Hexagonal Close-packed CrystalsSurface Diffraction PatternsSurface Substructure AnalysisSurface Superstructure Analysis
From an analysis of diffraction data for Au(111), we deduce that the observed 23-fold periodicity in the $〈110〉$ direction can be described by a regular superstructure of one-dimensional extended stacking faults. We propose that this surface is a realization of the Frenkel-Kontorova model of competing interactions and that the periodic changes in stacking from $\mathrm{ABC}$ to $\mathrm{ABA}$ may thus take the form of solitons. The solitons, of half-width 11.8 \AA{}, lead to an average compression of 4% in the $〈110〉$ direction.
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