What does an evaporating surface look like?

Alberto Pimpinelli, Jacques Villain

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

57 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Burton, Cabrera and Frank model for step flow is discussed in the case of evaporation, taking into account vacancy formation. In this framework, the criterion for nucleation of polyvacancies ("Lochkeime") on an evaporating vicinal surface with step-step separation l is found to be roughly κl > βγ, where γ is the step stiffness, 1/κ = √Dτv, D is the adatom diffusion constant, τv is the average residence time of adatoms on the surface before desorption and 1/β = kBT. Application to silicon is discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)521-542
Number of pages22
JournalPhysica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
Volume204
Issue number1-4
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 1994

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Statistics and Probability
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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