Simple model for anisotropic step growth

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Access rights

© 1998 American Physical Society (APS). http://www.aps.org

URL

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Science | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

1998

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

6851-6858

Series

Physical Review E, Volume 57, Issue 6

Abstract

We consider a simple model for the growth of isolated steps on a vicinal crystal surface. It incorporates diffusion and drift of adatoms on the terrace, and strong step and kink edge barriers. Using a combination of analytic methods and Monte Carlo simulations, we study the morphology of growing steps in detail. In particular, under typical molecular beam epitaxy conditions the step morphology is linearly unstable in the model and develops fingers separated by deep cracks. The vertical roughness of the step grows linearly in time, while horizontally the fingers coarsen proportional to t0.33. We develop scaling arguments to study the saturation of the ledge morphology for a finite width and length of the terrace.

Description

Keywords

vicinal crystal surface, isolated steps, growth, analytic methods, Monte Carlo simulations

Other note

Citation

Heinonen, J. & Bukharev, I. & Ala-Nissilä, Tapio & Kosterlitz, J. M. 1998. Simple model for anisotropic step growth. Physical Review E. Volume 57, Issue 6. P. 6851-6858. ISSN 1539-3755 (printed). DOI: 10.1103/physreve.57.6851.