Simultaneous step meandering and bunching instabilities controlled by Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier and elastic interaction

Through phase-field simulations, we investigate simultaneous step meandering and bunching instabilities with the presence of Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier and elastic interaction. The meandering instability induced by the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier is found to be dependent on the elastic interaction at low adatom deposition rate. The ordered step meandering-bunching structure is designed by using the predefined magnitude distribution of the force monopoles on vicinal surfaces based on interplay between the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier and the elastic interaction.