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As demonstrated with SPA-LEED and STM uniform height islands of preferred thickness form during the growth of Pb on Si(111). The islands form at temperatures T<250K and for fluxes F 1/60ML/sec which requires fast kinetics and balance between several atomic processes: diffusion towards the islands , diffusion to higher layers and preference for the atoms to remain on top of the preferred height islands. We have carried out SPA-LEED experiments to measure the barriers of the processes: we prepare an initial predominantly 5-step island height distribution and we deposit an additional 0.5ML Pb at different growth temperatures Tg to determine the transition to the next preferred height of 7-step islands (i.e. 2-step islands on top of the 5-step islands) with Spot Profile Analysis(SPA-LEED). We observe that 7-step island formation is possible above a minimum temperature Tg*=175K which indicates that the transfer of atoms from the surrounding region to the top of the islands is the main controlling process.