Apparent activation energy during surface evolution by step formation and flow

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© 2006 IOP Publishing. This is the accepted version of the following article: Gosálvez, M. A. & Cheng, D. & Nieminen, Risto M. & Sato, K. 2006. Apparent activation energy during surface evolution by step formation and flow. New Journal of Physics. Volume 8, Issue 11. 269/1-11. ISSN 1367-2630 (printed). DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/8/11/269, which has been published in final form at http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/8/11/269/meta.
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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Science | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2006

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

269/1-11

Series

New Journal of Physics, Volume 8, Issue 11

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.

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Keywords

anisotropic surfaces, activation energy

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Citation

Gosálvez, M. A. & Cheng, D. & Nieminen, Risto M. & Sato, K. 2006. Apparent activation energy during surface evolution by step formation and flow. New Journal of Physics. Volume 8, Issue 11. 269/1-11. ISSN 1367-2630 (printed). DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/8/11/269.