Self-healing of stacking faults in homoepitaxial growth on Ir(1 1 1)

The growth of a thin film in the presence of stacking faults is studied from the nucleation phase to the closure of the first monolayer in the face-centered cubic (fcc) system Ir/Ir(1 1 1) using temperature-variable scanning tunneling microscopy. The islands that nucleate in the hexagonal close-packed (hcp) stacking cannot coalesce with the regular islands. Instead, an assimilation process is observed, where material is transported from the metastable hcp to the energetically favorable fcc sites. The atomic mechanisms governing this transfer are identified.