OBSERVATION OF THE RELAXATION PROCESSES THAT FOLLOW ATOM REMOVAL FROM THE AU(111) SURFACE WITH THE SCANNING TUNNELING MICROSCOPE

The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has been used to perturb distribution of surface stress, and to observe the resulting relaxation processes in a time-resolved manner. Using nanoscale manipulation with the STM, we generated a hole with a radius of about 10 angstrom on the 22 X square-root 3 reconstructed structure of Au(111) surface, and observed the rearrangement of the dislocation lines of the reconstructed surface as a result of the formation of the hole. The area in which the pattern of dislocation lines is affected extends to about 80 angstrom from the site of the hole. The large range of the perturbation is most likely due to the long-range substrate-mediated elastic interaction of the hole with domain boundaries of the reconstructed surface. We find that a structure involving a closed loop of dislocation lines is formed at the initial stage of the relaxation process.