Single wavelength reflectance difference anisotropy (RDA) has been used to study the kinetics of the self-assembly of Ga atom chains on faceted Si(112) surfaces. The formation of the chains is followed from the initial deposition through changes in the surface reconstruction from(5×1)to(6×1).We present a simple Monte Carlo model to account for the time evolution of the RDA signal as a function of temperature and experimentally determined kinetic parameters. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.