Paper in Physical Review Letters erschienen

Das Paper mit dem Titel "Stress induced branching of growing crystals on curved substrates." von Christian Köhler, Rainer Backofen und Axel Voigt ist in der Zeitschrift Physical Review Letters erschienen. 

ABSTRACT

If two-dimensional crystals grow on a curved surface, the Gaussian curvature of the surface induces elastic stress and affects the growth pathway. The elastic stress can be alleviated by incorporating defects or, if this is energetically unfavorable, via an elastic instability which leads to anisotropic growth with branched ribbonlike structures. This instability provides a generic route to grow defect-free crystals on curved surfaces. Depending on the elastic properties of the crystal and the geometric properties of the surface, different growth morphologies with two-, four-, and sixfold symmetry develop. Using a phase field crystal type modeling approach, we provide a microscopic understanding of the morphology selection.