Frizzed appearance of steps in tunnel microscopy on Cu(100) and vicinal Cu(11n) surfaces

Abstract
Steps on Cu(100) and various vicinal Cu(11n) surfaces were studied with the scanning tunneling microscope and the kink concentrations are determined using a recently developed method. As expected, the kink concentration in steps on the (117) and the (1 1 11) surface is lower than for steps on the (100) surface due to the repulsive interaction between steps at small distances. On the (1 1 19) surface, however, steps have a larger kink concentration. The result is discussed in the context of the recently discovered attractive interaction between steps for intermediate step distances.