2004/05/04 by Michael Zaiser, Frederic Maqdani, Frédéric Grasset +3 · 2 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Adhesion, Friction, and Surface Interactions #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.93.195507
arxiv created 2004/05/04 · openalex publication_date 2004/11/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We analyze the surface morphology of metals after plastic deformation over a range of scales from 10 nm to 2 mm using atomic force microscopy and scanning white-light interferometry. We demonstrate that an initially smooth surface during deformation develops self-affine roughness over almost 4 orders of magnitude in scale. The Hurst exponent H of one-dimensional surface profiles initially decreases with increasing strain and then stabilizes at H approximately 0.75. We show that the profiles can be mathematically modeled as graphs of a fractional Brownian motion. Our findings can be understood in terms of a fractal distribution of plastic strain within the deformed samples.