Related papers: On the role of step-flow advection during electrom…
We study the effect of a constant electrical field applied on vicinal surfaces such as the Si$(111)$ surface. An electrical field parallel to the steps induces a meandering instability with a nonzero phase shift. Using the…
We studied the step dynamics during sublimation and growth in the presence of electromigration force acting on the adatoms. In the limit of fast surface diffusion and slow kinetics of atom attachment-detachment at the steps we formulate a…
We analyze the dynamics of crystal surfaces in the presence of electromigration. From a phase field model with a migration force which depends on the local geometry, we derive a step model with additional contributions in the kinetic…
Electromigration-induced step bunching in the presence of sublimation or deposition is studied theoretically in the attachment-limited regime. We predict a phase transition as a function of the relative strength of kinetic asymmetry and…
A sublimating vicinal crystal surface can undergo a step bunching instability when the attachment-detachment kinetics is asymmetric, in the sense of a normal Ehrlich-Schwoebel effect. Here we investigate this instability in a model that…
The steps at the crystal surfaces could be transparent for the migrating adatoms. In the case of significant transparency the velocity of a given step in a given moment is affected by detachment of atoms from rather distant steps in rather…
This work provides a ground for a quantitative interpretation of experiments on step bunching during sublimation of crystals with a pronounced Ehrlich-Schwoebel (ES) barrier in the regime of weak desorption. A strong step bunching…
We study the meandering instability during growth of an isolated nanostructure, a crystalline cone, consisting of concentric circular steps. The onset of the instability is studied analytically within the framework of the standard…
The Burton-Cabrera-Frank (BCF) model for the flow of line defects (steps) on crystal surfaces has offered useful insights into nanostructure evolution. This model has rested on phenomenological grounds. Our goal is to show via scaling…
Epitaxial growth on a surface vicinal to a high-symmetry crystallographic plane occurs through the propagation of atomic steps, a process called step-flow growth. In some instances, the steps tend to form close groups (or bunches), a…
We report new results on the non-conserved dynamics of parallel steps on vicinal surfaces in the case of sublimation with electromigration and step-step interactions. The derived equations are valid in the quasistatic approximation and in…
Step meandering instability in a Burton-Cabrera-Frank (BCF)-type model for the growth of an isolated, atomically high step on a crystal surface is analyzed. It is assumed that the growth is sustained by the molecular precursors deposition…
An extension of the Burton-Cabrera-Frank model [Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 243, 299 (1951)] including diffusion along steps and entropic step-step interaction is introduced. This extended model is successfully applied to simulate…
We model an apparent instability seen in recent experiments on current induced step bunching on Si(111) surfaces using a generalized 2D BCF model, where adatoms have a diffusion bias parallel to the step edges and there is an attachment…
Stepped GaN(0001) surface is studied by the kinetic Monte Carlo method and compared with the model based on Burton-Carbera-Frank equations. Successive stages of surface pattern evolution during high temperature sublimation process are…
The growth of crystal surfaces, under non-equilibrium conditions, involves the displacement of mono-atomic steps by atom diffusion and atom incorporations into steps. The time-evolution of the growing crystal surface is thus governed by a…
Burton-Cabrera-Frank (BCF) theory has proven to be a versatile framework to relate surface morphology and dynamics during crystal growth to the underlying mechanisms of adatom diffusion and attachment at steps. For an important class of…
The distinction between absolute and convective instabilities is well known in the context of hydrodynamics and plasma physics. In this Letter, we examine an epitaxial crystal growth model from this point of view and show that a…
We study the evolution of step bunches on vicinal surfaces using a thermodynamically consistent step-flow model that (i) circumvents the quasistatic approximation that prevails in the literature by accounting for the dynamics of adatom…
This is a review of recent theoretical work on complex dynamical behavior of steps on crystal surfaces. The first part of the article is devoted to the electromigration-driven motion of islands and voids, and the second part addresses step…