Nanoscale Fluctuations at Solid Surfaces
DOI: 10.1063/1.882897
On the nanometer scale, a seemingly smooth crystalline surface is not only bumpy, it’s also in motion. Tiny mesas and depressions appear and disappear; escarpments range over the surface like waves on a beach. These thermal fluctuations are visible, thanks to advances in imaging techniques, which exploit electrons to divine the nanoscale motions (see figure 1). But although experiments can capture the spatial structure of surface fluctuations with atomic resolution, they lack the temporal resolution to follow the hops of individual atoms. Instead, observations yield a set of parameters that characterize how the surface changes on longer, millisecond timescales.
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More about the authors
Zoltan Toroczkai, National Science Foundation and University of Maryland's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, College Park, Maryland.
Ellen D. Williams, National Science Foundation and University of Maryland's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, College Park, Maryland.
