Step bunching with both directions of the current: Vicinal W(110) surfaces versus atomistic-scale model

Olzat Toktarbaiuly, Victor Usov, Cormac Ó Coileáin, Katarzyna Siewierska, Sergey A. Krasnikov, Emma Norton, Sergey I. Bozhko, Valery N. Semenov, Alexander N. Chaika, Barry E. Murphy

7 more authors

Olaf Lübben, Filip Krzyżewski, Magdalena A. Załuska–Kotur, A. Krasteva, Hristina Popova, Vesselin Tonchev, Igor V Shvets

2018

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DOI 10.1103/physrevb.97.035436

Data confidence 70 medium

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Abstract

We report the observation of bunching of monoatomic steps on vicinal W(110) surfaces induced by step-up or step-down currents across the steps. Measurements reveal that the size-scaling exponent \ensuremath{\gamma}, connecting the maximal slope of a bunch with its height, differs depending on the current direction. We provide a numerical perspective by using an atomistic-scale model with a conserved surface flux to mimic experimental conditions, and also show that there is an interval of parameters in which the vicinal surface is unstable against step bunching for both directions of the adatom drift.