Physical Review Letters, 28 Sept. 1998, vol.81, (no.13):2743-6.
Current-induced step bending instability on vicinal surfaces
Da-Jiang Liu; Weeks, J.D.; Kandel, D.
Abstract
Motivated by recent experiments on current induced step bunching on
Si(111) surfaces, we study a generalized 2D Barton-Cabrera-Franck
model, where adatoms have a diffusion bias parallel to the step edges and
there is an attachment barrier at the step edge. We find a new linear
instability with novel step patterns. Monte Carlo simulations on a
solid-on-solid model are used to study the instability beyond the linear
regime.
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