Molecular dynamics study of Pb-substituted Cu(1 0 0) surface layers

Using molecular dynamics (MD) and phenomenological n-body potentials from the literature, we have studied the structure of the uppermost layers of low-index surfaces in copper after partial substitution of copper by lead atoms at randomly selected sites. We found that lead atoms substituting copper strongly perturb the positions of nearest and of next-nearest neighbors thus triggering the setup of a disordered, nanometer-thick amorphous-like surface layer. Equilibrium atomic density profiles, computed along the [1 0 0] crystallographic direction, show that amorphous overlayers are largely metastable whereas the system displays a structured compositional profile of lead segregating at the interfaces. Similarities between our results and experimental findings are briefly discussed.