The bond structure of computer-simulated field-ion images

Abstract

The distribution of atomic bonding in the computer-simulated field-ion images first derived by Moore (1962) has been determined and has been used to construct a model, both for preferential field evaporation or retention of a second component in dilute solution, and also for condensation and adsorption on field-evaporation surfaces. Visible atoms lie almost exclusively on kink and edge sites and the adsorption site distribution is just the mirror image of the distribution of surface sites. An approximation to the bond distribution, based on the assumption of a random surface section, yields poor agreement with the computed distribution.