Diffusion of one-dimensional clusters on Au and Pt(110) (1×2)

The diffusion of one-dimensional clusters on Au and Pt(110) (1×2) is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. Both metals are modeled by many-body tight-binding potentials. The energy barriers for the elementary diffusion mechanism (concerted jump, leapfrog, dissociation, etc.) are calculated, for chains of up to six atoms, by the nudged elastic band method. The consistency of the results on energy barriers is checked by high-temperature simulations.