Eur. Phys. J. D 45, 401-408 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2007-00201-y

Softlanding and STM imaging of Ag₅₆₁ clusters on a C₆₀ monolayer

¹ Universität Dortmund, Experimentelle Physik I, 44221 Dortmund, Germany
² Universität Freiburg, Fakultät für Physik, Hermann-Herder Straße 3, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
³ Fraunhofer-Institut für Werkstoffmechanik IWM, Wöhlerstraße 11, 79108 Freiburg, Germany
⁴ Freiburg Materials Research Center, Stefan-Meier-Straße 21, 79104 Freiburg, Germany

Corresponding author: ^a hoevel@physik.uni-dortmund.de

Received: 31 January 2007
Revised: 24 April 2007
Published online: 20 June 2007

Abstract

The low energy deposition of silver cluster cations with 561 (±5) atoms on a cold fullerene covered gold surface has been studied both by scanning tunneling microscopy and molecular dynamics simulation. The special properties of the C₆₀/Au(111) surface result in a noticeable fixation of the clusters without a significant change of the cluster shape. Upon heating to room temperature we observe a flattening or shrinking of the cluster samples due to thermal activation. Similar changes were observed also for mass selected Ag clusters with other sizes. For comparison we also studied Ag islands of similar size, grown by low temperature deposition of Ag atoms and subsequent annealing. A completely different behavior is observed with much broader size distributions and a qualitatively different response to annealing.