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Nucleation has been studied on atomic scale for Ag deposition on a Pt (111) surface at low temperature (50-120 K) by means of variable-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. From island density versus coverage data, the transition from the initial steps of nucleation to growth and coalescence has been studied as a function of temperature. The data show that dimers are stable nuclei for T110 K, which facilitates quantitative comparison with rate equations from nucleation theory. The migration barrier E₌=15710 meV is determined for Ag adatoms on Pt (111) and compared with theoretical values.
Brune et al. (Mon,) studied this question.