2007/02/09 by B. R. Conrad, Brad Conrad, William Cullen +7 · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.stat-mech #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.75.021603
published as Phys. Rev. E 75, 021603 (2007) · 21 pages, 6 figures
openalex publication_date 2007/02/09 · arxiv created 2008/10/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Spatial step edge fluctuations on a multicomponent surface of Al∕Si(111)\text\ensuremath-(√(3)\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi√(3)) were measured via scanning tunneling microscopy over a temperature range of 720--1070\phantom\rule0.3em0exK, for step lengths of L=65--160\phantom\rule0.3em0exnm. Even though the time scale of fluctuations of steps on this surface varies by orders of magnitude over the indicated temperature range, measured first-passage spatial persistence and survival probabilities are temperature independent. The power law functional form for spatial persistence probabilities is confirmed and the symmetric spatial persistence exponent is measured to be \ensuremathθ=0.498\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi0.062 in agreement with the theoretical prediction \ensuremathθ=1∕2. The survival probability is found to scale directly with y∕L, where y is the distance along the step edge. The form of the survival probabilities agrees quantitatively with the theoretical prediction, which yields exponential decay in the limit of small y∕L. The decay constant is found experimentally to be ys∕L=0.076\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi0.033 for y∕L\ensuremath≤0.2.