# Low-Energy Electron Microscopy Studies of Interlayer Mass Transport Kinetics on TiN(111) Source: [Low-Energy Electron Microscopy Studies of Interlayer Mass Transport Kinetics on TiN(111)]() Collection index: [llms.txt]() Data updated: 2025-10-24T11:24:05.966Z Authors: S. Kodambaka, Navot Israeli, J. Bareno, W. Swiech, Kenji Ohmori, I. Petrov, J. E. Greene Published: 2004-05-08T22:44:59.000Z ## Abstract In situ low-energy electron microscopy was used to study interlayer mass transport kinetics during annealing of three-dimensional (3D) TiN(111) mounds, consisting of stacked 2D islands, at temperatures T between 1550 and 1700 K. At each T, the islands decay at a constant rate, irrespective of their initial position in the mounds, indicating that mass is not conserved locally. From temperature-dependent island decay rates, we obtain an activation energy of 2.8+/-0.3 eV. This is consistent with the detachment-limited decay of 2D TiN islands on atomically-flat TiN(111) terraces \[Phys. Rev. Lett. 89 (2002) 176102\], but significantly smaller than the value, 4.5+/-0.2 eV, obtained for bulk-diffusion-limited spiral step growth \[Nature 429, 49 (2004)\]. We model the process based upon step flow, while accounting for step-step interactions, step permeability, and bulk mass transport. The results show that TiN(111) steps are highly permeable and exhibit strong repulsive temperature-dependent step-step interactions that vary between 0.003 and 0.076 eV-nm. The rate-limiting process controlling TiN(111) mound decay is surface, rather than bulk, diffusion in the detachment-limited regime. ## Recorded benchmark results A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage. ## Original sources and implementation [Original paper]() [PDF]()