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A quantitative study of the long-range interaction between single copper adatoms on Cu(111) mediated by the electrons in the two-dimensional surface-state band is presented. The interaction potential was determined by evaluating the distance distribution of two adatoms from a series of scanning tunneling microscopy images taken at temperatures of 9-21 K. The long-range interaction is oscillatory with a period of half the Fermi wavelength and decays for larger distances d as 1/d(2). Five potential minima were identified for separations of up to 70 A. The interaction significantly changes the growth of Cu/Cu(111) at low temperatures.
Repp et al. (Mon,) studied this question.