Physical Review Letters, 11 Dec. 1995, vol.75, (no.24):4456-9.
Faceting through the propagation of nucleation.
Hyeong-Chai Jeong; Weeks, J.D.
Abstract
Experiments show that faceting of a vicinal surface can be induced by
surface reconstruction, which often occurs only on sufficiently wide
terraces. We study this process using a one-dimensional terrace-step model
that assigns a lower free energy to terraces wider than a critical width
w/sub c/. When mass is conserved locally, through surface diffusion, we
find that a reconstructed terrace can nucleate the growth of another such
terrace nearby. The dynamics and spatial distribution of facets arising
from this model are very different from that produced by conventional
thermal nucleation.
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