Topics in surface structure and crystal growth

Crystal growth occurs following widely different modes; in particular the transition from layer-by-layer to continuous growth, and the transition from stable to dendritic growth have attracted much theoretical attention. The former transition (corresponding, for equilibrium surfaces, to the roughening transition) is considered from the point of view of atom-surface scattering used as a tool to probe the state of the surface, and the effects of roughness on the height, width and shape of the incoherent peaks are studied. As an approach to the latter transition, simulations of cluster growth are considered where dendritic shapes are obtained by letting “atoms” fall along random straight trajectories from a “vapour” onto the growing cluster. Two geometries are considered: either the “atoms” fall along the cords from an outer large circle, or they fall obliquely on to a line from points of a parallel line. In both cases ramified structures are obtained, although less open that from diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA), and their fractal nature is studied.