Journal de Physique I

DOI: 10.1051/jp1:1996118
J. Phys. I France 6 (1996) 1095-1125

Decay of Grooves Cut in a Surface with Singular Orientation when the Neighbouring Orientations are Unstable

Christophe Duport¹, Anna Chame¹, W.W. Mullins² and Jacques Villain¹

¹ CEA, Département de Recherche Fondamentale sur la Matière Condensée, SPSMS, 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
² Carnegie-Mellon University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA

(Received 19 February 1996, accepted 10 April 1996)

Abstract
The decay of a grooved profile when the average orientation is singular is treated in the particular case when the orientations close to the singular one are unstable. The system is assumed to exchange atoms with its vapour. The step fluctuations, which allow the profile decay, are treated by a partially exact transfer matrix method. The time $\overline \tau$ to peel the topmost layer is obtained as a function of the width $\ell$ of a terrace: $\overline \tau \propto \ell {\rm exp}(k\ell)$ , where the constant k depends on the temperature.