Investigation of surface mass transport in Al–Si–Ca–oxide glasses via the thermal induced decay of submicron surface gratings

In metal crystals, annealing induced decay of micron sized surface features occurs via surface rather than bulk diffusion. Surface transport also dominates the decay of micron sized patterns etched into semiconductors and initial stages in the sintering of ceramics. In oxide glasses, surface transport is expected to take over at a sufficiently small feature size as well, but this transition has not yet been identified, possibly because of the difficulties of preparing periodic gratings