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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 102 » Issue 14
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 146103 (2009) [4 pages]

Rapid Coarsening of Ion Beam Ripple Patterns by Defect Annihilation

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Henri Hansen1, Alex Redinger1,2, Sebastian Messlinger1, Georgiana Stoian1,*, Joachim Krug3, and Thomas Michely2,†
1I. Physikalisches Institut, RWTH Aachen, 52056 Aachen, Germany
2II. Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, 50937 Köln, Zülpicher Straße 77, Germany
3Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität zu Köln, 50937 Köln, Zülpicher Straße 77, Germany

Received 30 October 2008; published 7 April 2009

Ripple patterns formed on Pt(111) through grazing incidence ion beam erosion coarsen rapidly. At and below 450 K coarsening of the patterns is athermal and kinetic, unrelated to diffusion and surface free energy. Similar to the situation for sand dunes, coarsening takes place through annihilation reactions of mobile defects in the pattern. The defect velocity derived on the basis of a simple model agrees quantitatively with the velocity of monatomic steps illuminated by the ion beam.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.146103
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.146103
PACS:
68.35.Ct, 61.80.Jh, 61.82.Bg, 68.37.Ef

*Present address: Solid State Physics, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.

†michely@ph2.uni-koeln.de

 
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