title: Stable equidistant step trains during crystallization of insulin.
abstract: Bunching of growth steps plagues layerwise crystallization of materials in laboratory, industrial, and geological environments, and theory predicts that equidistant step trains are unstable under a variety of conditions. Searching for an example of stable equidistant step trains, we monitored the generation and spatiotemporal evolution of step trains on length scales from 100 nm to 1 mm during the crystallization of insulin, using atomic force microscopy and phase-shifting interferometry. We show that near-equidistant step trains are generated by single and cooperating screw dislocation. The lack of step-step interaction and the overall transport-controlled growth regime further regularize the step train and ensure the stability of the obtained equidistant arrangement.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Gliko
authors.forename: Ilya
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Reviakine
authors.forename: Peter G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Vekilov
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization; D007328:Insulin / Q000737:chemistry*; D007700:Kinetics; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D008956:Models, Chemical
chemical_list: D007328:Insulin