Thermal roughening of Cu(115): An energy-resolved helium-atom-beam scattering study

The effect of step geometry in copper oxidation by hyperthermal O2 molecular beam: Cu(511) vs Cu(410)

“…At T s = 300 K, the large mass transport of Cu atoms needed to form the pyramids does not occur and a thicker Cu 2 O phase develops more effectively. This result may be related to the roughening transition of Cu(511) steps [26][27][28] which occurs around ∼400 K. Roughening of Cu(511) could, however, be induced at T s = 300 K by the energy transfer from HOMB leading to kink creation at the step edge (cf., the kink creation energy of At T n = 1400 K, we can vary the beam energy from 0.53 eV to 2.2 eV, see Fig. 5(a).…”

Effect of Interface Structure on the Microstructural Evolution of Ceramics

“…23,[25][26][27][28][29] The transition of a surface structure from singular to atomically rough was not clearly demonstrated experimentally until recent observations by a scanning tunneling microscope. [30][31][32][33][34] Note that the surface transition has no observable heat singularity, which is a typical feature of thermodynamic phase transformations. 35 Furthermore, the extent of the transition is limited to only a few atomic layers from the surface level.…”

Bridging the structure gap: Chemistry of nanostructured surfaces at well-defined defects

“…the recent review of Hammer [5]) and, on the other hand, to try using the steps as naturally nanostructured templates for the growth and self-assembling of ultra-thin films [6,7] and other nanosized structures for applications to nanoelectronics [8][9][10][11][12][13]. Among the aspects of HMI surfaces which captured the largest attention we mention: (a) the modification of the electronic properties due to the nanosized terrace width and to the reduced dimensionality of the system [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]; (b) the modification of the vibrational properties due to the additional phonons localized at the step edges [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]; (c) the roughening transition associated to step edge meandering [30][31][32][33][34][35][36]; (d) the modification of surface diffusion, impeded by the very presence of the steps and of the related Ehrlich-Schwoebel (ES) barriers [37][38][39][40][41][42]; (e) the intrinsic chirality of some step kinked surfaces, which may be of potential interest for heterogeneous asymmetric synthesis [43] and for the separation of enantiomers in enantio-sensitive reactions [44]…”