2005/02/28 by Daniele Vilone, Claudio Castellano, Paolo Politi
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.susc.2005.05.025
published as Surface Sci. Lett. 588, L227-L232 (2005) · 10 pages, 4 figures. One figure added and discussion of the critical nucleus revised. Accepted for publication on Surface Science Letters
arxiv created 2005/05/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
We consider the effect of nucleation on a one-dimensional stepped surface, finding that step-flow growth is metastable for any strength of the additional step-edge barrier. The surface is made unstable by the formation of a critical nucleus, whose lateral size is related to the destabilization process on a high-symmetry surface. Arguments based on a critical nucleus of height two, which suggest the existence of a fully stable regime for small barrier, fail to describe this phenomenon.