DISORDERING MECHANISMS OF THE CU(110) SURFACE

We review recent theoretical work on the various disordering mechanisms of the Cu(110) surface. In these studies the properties of the surface, from the onset of enhanced anharmonicity in surface vibrations up to bulk melting point T(M), have been studied using molecular dynamics and lattice-gas Monte Carlo methods with many-body interactions derived from the effective medium theory. Well after the onset of enhanced out-of-plane surface vibrations, clustering of surface defects is found to induce a roughening transition at T almost-equal-to 0.81T(M), and surface premelting is found to occur at T almost-equal-to 0.97T(M). These results suggest, that these transitions can both appear at Cu(110). The general picture of disordering as reported here for Cu(110), is expected to be valid also for other unreconstructed (110) surfaces of fcc metals.