Competing mechanisms for step meandering in unstable growth

Abstract

The meander instability of a vicinal surface growing under step flow conditions is studied within a solid-on-solid model. In the absence of edge diffusion the selected meander wavelength agrees quantitatively with the continuum linear stability analysis of Bales and Zangwill [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 41}, 4400 (1990)]. In the presence of edge diffusion a local instability mechanism related to kink rounding barriers dominates, and the meander wavelength is set by one-dimensional nucleation. The long-time behavior of the meander amplitude differs in the two cases, and disagrees with the predictions of a nonlinear step evolution equation [O. Pierre-Louis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 80}, 4221 (1998)]. The variation of the meander wavelength with the deposition flux and with the activation barriers for step adatom detachment and step crossing (the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier) is studied in detail. The interpretation of recent experiments on surfaces vicinal to Cu(100) [T. Maroutian et al., Phys. Rev. B {\bf 64}, 165401 (2001)] in the light of our results yields an estimate for the kink barrier at the close packed steps.

8 pages, 7 .eps figures. Final version. Some errors in chapter V corrected

References in corpus (9)

• Instabilities in crystal growth by atomic or molecular beams
• Morphology of ledge patterns during step flow growth of metal surfaces vicinal to fcc(001)
• The effect of monomer evaporation on a simple model of submonolayer growth
• Models for adatom diffusion on fcc(001) metal surfaces
• Crystal symmetry, step-edge diffusion and unstable growth
• Nonlinear evolution of step meander during growth of a vicinal surface with no desorption
• A contiuum model for low temperature relaxation of crystal steps
• Instability and wavelength selection during step flow growth of metal surfaces vicinal to fcc(001)
• Asymptotic step profiles from a nonlinear growth equation for vicinal surfaces

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Four Lectures on the Physics of Crystal Growth
• Orientation Dependence of Step Stiffness: Failure of SOS and Ising Models to Describe Experimental Data
• Effect of kink-rounding barriers on step edge fluctuations
• Breakdown of step-flow growth in unstable homoepitaxy
• Step meandering: The balance between the potential well and the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier
• Anisotropic dynamics of a vicinal surface under the meandering step instability