Anisotropic Coarsening of Periodic Grooves: Time-Resolved X-Ray Scattering

Coarsening dynamics of mesoscopic periodic grooves (500{endash}1500{Angstrom}) is characterized, as they self-assemble on a miscut Si(113) surface, following a temperature quench through a faceting transformation. Use of an area detector in glancing angle reflection geometry allowed for simultaneous measurements of highly anisotropic length scales. Over more than two decades of time, the length of the grooves grows as the third power of the width of the grooves. This result constitutes a direct confirmation of a recently proposed theory and the observation of anisotropic dynamic scaling behavior. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society}