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Strong bonds and far-from-equilibrium conditions minimize errors in lattice-gas growth
1Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Abstract:
We use computer simulation to study the layer-by-layer growth of particle structures in a lattice gas, taking the number of incorporated vacancies as a measure of the quality of the grown structure. A dynamic scaling relation describes the quality of structures in and out of equilibrium and reveals that the highest-quality structures are obtained, for fixed observation time, using strong interactions and far-from-equilibrium growth conditions. This result contrasts with the usual assumption that weak interactions and mild nonequilibrium conditions are the best way to minimize errors during assembly.
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