Stiffening Transition in Vicinal Surfaces with Adsorption

Abstract

We study the vicinal surface with adsorption below the roughening temperature, using the restricted solid-on-solid model coupled with the Ising model. We calculate the step tension $\gamma$ and the step-interaction coefficient $B$ by employing a variant of the density matrix algorithm. We find a ``stiffening transition'' at a temperature $T_{\mathrm{s}}$ where $B$ vanishes. At $T_{\mathrm{s}}$ surface free energy has the form $f(p)-f(0)=\gamma p+(const.)p^5+...$ ($p$: surface gradient), which differs from the well-known $p$-$p^3$ form.

PTPTEX 6 pages, 3 figures