It was pointed out that surface defects such as steps and kinks tended to act as heterogeneous nucleation centers. Here, they were found to affect the growth mode of physisorbed Xe layers on a stepped-kinked (001) Ru surface. By taking advantage of the difference in 5p1/2 electron binding energy between Xe atoms in the first layer (next to Ru) and those in the second layer (on top of Xe), step defects on the (001) surface could induce 3-dimensional Xe cluster growth before saturation of the first monolayer occurred. This behavior was found to be temperature-dependent. At temperatures of between 56 and 90K, the tendency to clustering decreased with increasing temperature. On a perfectly flat (001) surface, only strict layer-by-layer growth was found in this temperature range.

A.Jablonski, K.Wandelt: Surface Science, 1991, 251-252, 650-5