[JRKrause]

Drawing from melt to achieve a consistent crystal orientation was my first thought as well.

Looking at the Griffin paper, the Pb(2) site is described as being 1.08eV 'more energetically favorable'. I am having trouble understanding what this means.

Years back I did MOCVD semiconductor fabrication research, I never reached a mastery of it but I am still trying to leverage that understanding here.

During growth, adatoms that incorporate into proper crystal lattice locations enter a lower energy state compared to those in imperfect locations. The energy state is lower in the sense that it requires more energy to remove them from that location. Hence careful control of temperature allows you to selectively favor incorporation into these low energy locations e.g. choose a temperature high enough to remove adatoms from 'imperfect' locations but low enough to not remove them from 'perfect' (low energy) locations.

So when the author says 'energetically favorable' am I to understand this means the Pb(2) location represents a lower energy state (i.e. more difficult to remove Cu from this location) or the opposite? Or something else entirely?