Stiffening Transition in Vicinal Surfaces with Adsorption

Akutsu, Noriko; Akutsu, Yasuhiro; Yamamoto, Takao

Stiffening Transition in Vicinal Surfaces with Adsorption

Authors

Akutsu, Noriko

Akutsu, Yasuhiro

Yamamoto, Takao

Description

We study the vicinal surface with adsorption below the roughening temperature, using the restricted solid-on-solid model coupled with the Ising model. We calculate the step tension $γ$ and the step-interaction coefficient $B$ by employing a variant of the density matrix algorithm. We find a ``stiffening transition'' at a temperature $T_{\rm s}$ where $B$ vanishes. At $T_{\rm s}$ surface free energy has the form $f(p)- f(0)= γp + ({const.})p^5 + ...$ ($p$: surface gradient), which differs from the well-known $p$-$p^3$ form.
PTPTEX 6 pages, 3 figures