Stability of terrace widths at small Peclet number

Abstract

We show that for vapor phase growth on a stepped surface at small but finite Peclet numbers the terrace width remains stable following a disturbance away from the steady state periodic step train. Our analysis is based on a microscopic description of the adatom kinetics; however, we show that for 1 ⪢ P ⪢ a/ L ( P) is the Peclet number, a 2 is the site density, and L is the terrace width) that the step-adatom exchange kinetics are not significant as is the case for P = 0; instead the step motion provides the mechanism for stability.