Revisiting elastic interactions between steps on vicinal surfaces: The buried dipole model

Geoffroy Prévot (1) , B. Croset (1)

1 GPS - Groupe de Physique des Solides

We expose a new analytical method for computing elastic displacements and interactions due to steps on vicinal surfaces. The model of a "buried dipole" allows us to take into account the specific geometry of the step while performing anisotropic linear elasticity calculations. The displacements found show a remarkable agreement with molecular dynamics simulations for Cu and Pt (001) and (111) vicinals. The interaction energy between steps strongly depends on the dipole direction.

Mots clés: copper; platinum; surface structure; surface topography

Geoffroy Prévot, B. Croset. Revisiting elastic interactions between steps on vicinal surfaces: The buried dipole model. Physical Review Letters, 2004, 92, pp.256104. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.256104⟩. ⟨hal-00004999⟩