Phonons of Metallic Vicinal Surfaces
arXiv:cond-mat/0111245 · doi:10.1016/S0039-6028(01)01992-6
Abstract
We present an analysis of the vibrational dynamics of metal vicinal surfaces using the embedded atom method to describe the interaction potential and both a real space Green's function method and a slab method to calculate the phonons. We report two main general characteristics : a global shift of the surface vibrational density of states resulting from a softening of the force field. The latter is a direct result of the reduction of coordination for the different type of surface atoms; and an appearance of high frequency modes above the bulk band, resulting from a stiffening of the force field near the step atom. The latter is due to a rearrangement of the atomic positions during the relaxation of the surface atoms yielding a large shortening of the nearest neighbor distances near the step atoms.
6 figures, to appear in Sur. Sci. proceedings of VAS10