AVS 49th International Symposium
    Surface Science Tuesday Sessions
       Session SS2-TuM

Paper SS2-TuM10
Selforganized Nanostructures at Vicinal Surfaces

Tuesday, November 5, 2002, 11:20 am, Room C-110

Session: Diffusion & Growth on Metal Surfaces
Presenter: H.-J. Ernst, CEA Saclay, France
Authors: N. Nöel, CEA Saclay, France
T. Maroutian, CEA Saclay, France
L. Douillard, CEA Saclay, France
H.-J. Ernst, CEA Saclay, France
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The use of intrinsic instabilities in epitaxial growth is currently actively explored as a promising pathway for lateral nanostructuring of surfaces as a cost-effective alternative to lithography based schemes. The origin of these instabilities is traced back to the presence of an excess energy barrier for adatom diffusion over descending steps, the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier. Upon growth of Cu on vicinal Cu templates a step-meandering instability develops, resulting in an in-plane patterning of the surfaces at the nanometer scale with a temperature- and flux-dependent characteristic wavelength.@footnote 1@ The step width increases with time (coverage) according to a power law with exponent 1/3. This experimental finding is at variance with currently existing theories.@footnote 2@ @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@T. Maroutian et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4353, (1999); idem, Phys. Rev. B 64, 165401 (2001) @footnote 2@M. Rusanen et al., Phys. Rev. B 65, 41404 (2002).