In this dissertation, we review the physics associated with surfaces and interfaces in equilibrium and non-equilibrium. Our emphasis will be on interfaces that are driven far away from equilibrium with special interest in the phenomenon of kinetic roughening. Models which describe non-equilibrium interfaces will be introduced and analyzed using techniques such as the Renormalization Group, Monte Carlo simulations, and direct integration of the equation of motion. Different interface relaxation mechanisms will be discussed with a focus on surface diffusion, which is believed to be the dominant effect in Molecular Beam Epitaxy. These interface growth models generate self-affine structures with various correlations satisfying a dynamic scaling law. We compute the scaling exponents and functions. Finally, we study the effect of quenched impurities on the dynamics of a driven interface with a conservation law. The impurity effect leads to anomalous scaling exponents and qualitatively changes the interface dynamics. Our results are summarized in two articles to be published: Refs. (Govind and Guo, 1992; Govind, Guo and Grant, 1992).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.56667 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Govind, Niranjan |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001318673, proquestno: AAIMM80442, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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