Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Coarsening of Unstable Surface Features During Fe(001) Homoepitaxy

Published

Author(s)

Joseph A. Stroscio, Daniel T. Pierce, Mark D. Stiles, A Zangwill, L Sander

Abstract

The evolution of the surface profile during homoepitaxial growth of Fe(001) is studied by scanning tunnelling microscopy and reflection high energy electron diffraction. The observed morphology exhibits a non-self affine collection of mound-like features that maintain their shape but coarsen as growth proceeds. The characteristic feature separation L is set in the submonolayer regime and increases with thickness, t, as L ~ t 0.16 {plus or minus} 0.04. During the coarsening phase, the mounds are characterized by a magic slope and a lack of reflection symmetry. These observations are shown to be described by a continuum growth equation without capillarity.
Citation
Physical Review Letters
Volume
75
Issue
23

Citation

Stroscio, J. , Pierce, D. , Stiles, M. , Zangwill, A. and Sander, L. (1995), Coarsening of Unstable Surface Features During Fe(001) Homoepitaxy, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=620457 (Accessed March 29, 2024)
Created January 1, 1995, Updated June 2, 2021