Roughening and Facet Formation in Crystals

Abstract

For a large class of models, the connection between roughening and facet formation is explored in detail. It is shown that there is a universal jump in the crystal surface curvature at the roughening transition. Explicit calculations within one model yield facet shapes and a universal exponent describing crystal shapes near a facet. Hyperscaling arguments provide facet sizes for generalized solid-on-solid models.