Ordered growth of cobalt nanostructures on a Au(111) vicinal surface: nucleation mechanisms and temperature behavior

We study the growth of submonolayer coverage of cobalt on the Au(788) vicinal surface. Due to a large unit cell reconstruction, this surface is spontaneously patterned in two dimensions at a nanometer scale. We show that the cobalt growth on this substrate displays a long-range ordered nanodots array in a wide temperature range. The atomic processes responsible for such an organized growth are discussed using STM images with atomic resolution and chemical contrast.