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Letter

Nature Materials 2, 783–787 (1 December 2003) | doi:10.1038/nmat1011

Quasi-collective motion of nanoscale metal strings in metal surfaces

M. Labayen , C. Ramirez , W. Schattke & O. M. Magnussen

Mass transport processes on metal surfaces play a key role in epitaxial growth and coarsening processes. They are usually described in terms of independent, statistical diffusion and attachment/detachment of individual metal adatoms or vacancies.