Effect of step stiffness and diffusion anisotropy on the meandering of a growing vicinal surface
Statistical Mechanics
2009-11-11 v1 Materials Science
Abstract
We study the step meandering instability on a surface characterized by the alternation of terraces with different properties, as in the case of Si(001). The interplay between diffusion anisotropy and step stiffness induces a finite wavelength instability corresponding to a meandering mode. The instability sets in beyond a threshold value which depends on the relative magnitudes of the destabilizing flux and the stabilizing stiffness difference. The meander dynamics is governed by the conserved Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, which display spatiotemporal coarsening.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0602353,
title = {Effect of step stiffness and diffusion anisotropy on the meandering of a growing vicinal surface},
author = {Thomas Frisch and Alberto Verga},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0602353},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. (February 2006)