title: Macroscopic view of crystal-step transparency.
abstract: We study macroscopic aspects of crystal surface relaxation in 2+1 dimensions by accounting for near-equilibrium kinetics of transparent steps at the nanoscale. For slowly varying step geometries, we show that step permeability can simply renormalize a parameter in a known relation between the large-scale surface flux and the step chemical potential. This leads to a nonlinear fourth-order partial differential equation for the surface height profile.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Quah
authors.forename: Jerrod
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: Dionisios
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Margetis