Macroscopic view of crystal-step transparency.
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.
Quah
John
J
Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
Young
Jerrod
J
Margetis
Dionisios
D