TY - JOUR
T1 - Step Crowding Effects Dampen the Stochasticity of Crystal Growth Kinetics
AU - Lutsko, James F.
AU - Van Driessche, Alexander E. S.
AU - Duran-Olivencia, Miguel A.
AU - Maes, Dominique
AU - Sleutel, Mike
PY - 2016/1/6
Y1 - 2016/1/6
N2 - Crystals grow by laying down new layers of material which can either correspond in size to the height of one unit cell (elementary steps) or multiple unit cells (macrosteps). Surprisingly, experiments have shown that macrosteps can grow under conditions of low supersaturation and high impurity density such that elementary step growth is completely arrested. We use atomistic simulations to show that this is due to two effects: the fact that the additional layers bias fluctuations in the position of the bottom layer towards growth and by a transition, as step height increases, from a 2D to a 3D nucleation mechanism.
AB - Crystals grow by laying down new layers of material which can either correspond in size to the height of one unit cell (elementary steps) or multiple unit cells (macrosteps). Surprisingly, experiments have shown that macrosteps can grow under conditions of low supersaturation and high impurity density such that elementary step growth is completely arrested. We use atomistic simulations to show that this is due to two effects: the fact that the additional layers bias fluctuations in the position of the bottom layer towards growth and by a transition, as step height increases, from a 2D to a 3D nucleation mechanism.
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.015501
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.015501
M3 - Article
SN - 0031-9007
VL - 116
JO - Physical Review Letters
JF - Physical Review Letters
IS - 1
M1 - 015501
ER -