Manipulation of growth modes in heteroepitaxy: Ni/Cu(111)

Growth manipulation methods, which have been successfully used to improve the growth of homoepitaxial films, are applied to molecular beam epitaxy of the heteroepitaxial system Ni/Cu(111). The procedures applied are temperature reduction during nucleation and pulsed ion bombardment during deposition. While the first does not lead to smoother films, the ion beam assisted growth is successful in reducing the film roughness.