THE DYNAMIC VARIATIONS OF TERRACE LENGTH DURING GROWTH ON STEPPED SURFACES

A recently derived theoretical method of 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. We show that the equidistant step configuration is favoured even in growth regimes where nucleation on the terraces competes with atom incorporation at steps. Furthermore, we found a remarkable qualitative correspondence of the results obtained from the nonlinear diffusion equations and the simulations.