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Deposition of Au on vicinal Si(553) surfaces results in the self-assembly of one-dimensional (1D) Au atomic wires. Charge transfer from the Au wire to the Si step edge leads to a chain of Si danglingbond orbitals with a long range ordered threefold periodicity along the steps and infinite interchain interaction perpendicular to the steps. Employing spot-profile analysis low-energy electron diraction (SPA-LEED) we observed a broadening of spot width with time, reflecting the degradation of Si dangling bond chain and Au wire length. Adsorbates were identified as primary source for spot broadening. They force the generation of solitons and anti-solitons which immediately destroy the long-range order along and perpendicular to the steps, respectively. From the temporal evolution of broadening, we conclude that the Au wires are less reactive to adsorption than the Si dangling bond chains.

The self-assembly of submonolayer amounts of Au on the densely stepped Si(553) surface creates an array of closely spaced \atomic wires" separated by 1.5 nm. At low temperature, charge transfer between the terraces and the row of silicon dangling bonds at the step edges leads to a charge-ordered state within the row of dangling bonds with x3 periodicity. Interactions between the dangling bonds lead to their ordering into a fully two-dimensional (2D) array with centered registry between adjacent steps. We show that as the temperature is raised, soliton defects are created within each step edge. The concentration of solitons rises with increasing temperature and eventually destroys the 2D order by decoupling the step edges, reducing the effective dimensionality of the system to 1D. This crossover from higher to lower dimensionality is unexpected and, indeed, opposite to the behavior in other systems.