Morphological stability of nanostructures

Surface diffusion-induced smoothing of features below the roughening temperature is discussed using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations and a continuum description is developed. Rounding off the cusp in the surface free energy at low Miller index orientations permits a numerical solution of relaxation driven by surface diffusion. For both unidirectional and bidirectional sinusoidal profiles of wavelength L, the amplitude decays linearly with time and the decay time scales as L{sup -3}. Surface morphology evolution below the roughening temperature as described by the continuum equation and a step model are compared.