Faceting Transition in an Exactly Solvable Terrace-Ledge-Kink model

TL;DR

This paper provides an exact solution to a microscopic terrace-ledge-kink model of crystal surfaces, revealing a faceting transition influenced by temperature and chemical potential, and analyzes surface fluctuations with conformal field theory.

Contribution

It introduces an exactly solvable TLK model and characterizes the faceting transition driven by temperature and chemical potential.

Findings

Identifies a faceting transition in the TLK model.

Analyzes thermal fluctuations in the rough phase using conformal field theory.

Provides exact solutions for the microscopic surface behavior.

Abstract

We solve exactly a Terrace-Ledge-Kink (TLK) model describing a crystal surface at a microscopic level. We show that there is a faceting transition driven either by temperature or by the chemical potential that controls the slope of the surface. In the rough phase we investigate thermal fluctuations of the surface using Conformal Field Theory.