Apparent activation energy during surface evolution by step formation and flow
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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date
2006-11-09
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Language
en
Pages
1-11
Series
New Journal of Physics, Volume 8
Abstract
During growth and etching by step flow as examples of anisotropic surface processing the apparent activation energy of the growth/etch rate depends on orientation, increasing gradually as a principal, terrace-rich surface is approached. This behaviour is traditionally explained as a change in the dominating process from step propagation to island/pit nucleation. We show that the orientation dependence of the activation energy is actually the result of a traditionally disregarded temperature dependence in the number of active step sites and is not attributable to an increasing role of step nucleation nor to a purely geometrical decrease in the number of step sites. This modifies the traditional picture of the apparent energy for a principal surface and explains how the energy can be higher than, equal to or even lower than that for vicinal orientations.Description
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Citation
Gosálvez , M A , Cheng , D , Nieminen , R & Sato , K 2006 , ' Apparent activation energy during surface evolution by step formation and flow ' , New Journal of Physics , vol. 8 , 269 , pp. 1-11 . https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/8/11/269