Can one have preroughening of vicinal surfaces?
arXiv:cond-mat/9910440 · doi:10.1016/S0039-6028(00)00207-7
Abstract
We discuss the possibility that, besides roughening, a vicinal surface could display preroughening (PR), and consider the possible mechanisms for its promotion. Within the framework of a terrace-step-kink model, it turns out that a PR transition is possible, and could be induced by a short-range repulsion between parallel kinks along the same step or on adjacent steps, or even by some kind of extended range step-step repulsion. We discuss the possible relevance of this phenomenon to the anomalous roughening behaviour recently reported for Ag(115).
9 pages, 3 postscript figures, submitted to Surface Science