Do magnetic properties affect growth of atomic clusters? The influence of magnetism on growth of clusters has not been worked out on a microscopic level. Intuitively, the energies involved in magnetism are much smaller than the ones relevant in atom growth and one does not expect that magnetism essentially alter the growth process. Recently, experiments have found that there may be possible morphological changes as a result of vortex spin structure in Gadolinium (Gd) islands on W(110). One of the possible explanations of the formation of the holes is that they originate from a vortex structure of the magnetic moments of Gd. We use Monte Carlo Method to study how the spin-spin interactions may affect growth patterns, and are looking into the conditions of which the formations of the hole...[ Read more ]

Do magnetic properties affect growth of atomic clusters? The influence of magnetism on growth of clusters has not been worked out on a microscopic level. Intuitively, the energies involved in magnetism are much smaller than the ones relevant in atom growth and one does not expect that magnetism essentially alter the growth process. Recently, experiments have found that there may be possible morphological changes as a result of vortex spin structure in Gadolinium (Gd) islands on W(110). One of the possible explanations of the formation of the holes is that they originate from a vortex structure of the magnetic moments of Gd. We use Monte Carlo Method to study how the spin-spin interactions may affect growth patterns, and are looking into the conditions of which the formations of the holes, vortices and vortex hole pairs are favorable. We will report results showing how the vortex pair density, hole density, vortex-hole density vary with temperature and the relaxation rate. Our results show that there is correlation between the formation of holes and vortexes during the growth process.