English

Electromigration-Induced Propagation of Nonlinear Surface Waves

Pattern Formation and Solitons 2009-11-07 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

Due to the effects of surface electromigration, waves can propagate over the free surface of a current-carrying metallic or semiconducting film of thickness h_0. In this paper, waves of finite amplitude, and slow modulations of these waves, are studied. Periodic wave trains of finite amplitude are found, as well as their dispersion relation. If the film material is isotropic, a wave train with wavelength lambda is unstable if lambda/h_0 < 3.9027..., and is otherwise marginally stable. The equation of motion for slow modulations of a finite amplitude, periodic wave train is shown to be the nonlinear Schrodinger equation. As a result, envelope solitons can travel over the film's surface.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.nlin/0201030,
  title  = {Electromigration-Induced Propagation of Nonlinear Surface Waves},
  author = {R. Mark Bradley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nlin/0201030},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

13 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. E

R2 v1 2026-07-22T18:09:02.855Z