The dynamic variations of terrace length during growth on stepped surfaces

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Abstract
A recently derived theoretical method for modelling molecular beam epitaxy on stepped surfaces, which includes a nonlinear term for nucleation, has been extended so that large deviations from periodic step structure can be examined. The method is used in conjunction with Monte Carlo simulations to monitor the growth dynamics of a stepped surface with unequal terrace lengths and identify the stable configuration. The authors show that the equidistant step configuration is favoured even in growth regimes where nucleation on the terraces competes with atom incorporation at steps. Furthermore, they found a remarkable qualitative correspondence of the results obtained from the nonlinear diffusion equations and the simulations.

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