Fast coarsening in unstable epitaxy with desorption
arXiv:cond-mat/9811016 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.59.R6263
Abstract
Homoepitaxial growth is unstable towards the formation of pyramidal mounds when interlayer transport is reduced due to activation barriers to hopping at step edges. Simulations of a lattice model and a continuum equation show that a small amount of desorption dramatically speeds up the coarsening of the mound array, leading to coarsening exponents between 1/3 and 1/2. The underlying mechanism is the faster growth of larger mounds due to their lower evaporation rate.
4 pages, 4 PostScript figures