  Quantum confinement was found to play a critical role in the formation of
Au(111) islands grown on the surface of MoS2. These confinement effects are
fully three dimensional, with a strong correlation to the relatively large
Fermi wavelength associated with the Au(111) planes. The confinement effects
result in preferred heights with a periodicity of nearly 2 nm and persist to
much higher temperatures than are typically seen in electronic growth mode
systems. These findings indicate the potential to explore electronic growth
modes in a new class of systems based on metal - layered semiconductor
interfaces.
