2012/07/18 by Alberto Verga, A. Verga, Verga, A.
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics and Thin Films #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1207.4354
4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2012/07/18 · openalex publication_date 2012/07/18 · arxiv updated 2012/07/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The morphology of a growing crystal surface is studied in the case of an unstable two-dimensional step flow. Competition between bunching and meandering of steps leads to a variety of patterns characterized by their respective instability growth rates. The roughness exponent is shown to go from 1/2 to 1, between the pure bunching to the meandering regimes. Using numerical simulations, we observe that generically, a transition between the two regimes occurs. We find surface shapes and roughness time evolution in quantitative agreement with experiments.