Heterogeneous energetic topographies generated by a diffusional mechanism

In the present paper, we study the main characteristic features of surface energetic topographies generated via the evolution of a single adsorbed particle whose mobility strongly affects the adsorption energy of each visited site. This tracer changes its coordinates by means of activated jumps to nearest-neighbor sites modifying the adsorption energy of each visited site according to a very simple law. Therefore, its evolution on the lattice step-by-step changes the energy surface which in turn allows to obtain an heterogeneous trap substrate from an initially homogeneous lattice. In the framework of the well known surface growth theory, two different quantities (the mean site energy and the energy roughness of the substrate) have been monitored in order to characterize the process. The study of the time dependence of these quantities leads to the determination of the scaling behaviors represented by the scaling exponents. In particular, the obtained values for the scaling exponents suggest that the problem belongs to an unknown universality class.