Studies of step stiffnesses and relaxation on Pt(111), Pd(111) and Mo(011)

We describe investigations of equilibrium step structure on Pt(1 1 1), Pd(1 1 1) and Mo(0 1 1), using low energy electron microscopy. From capillary wave analyses we obtained fluctuation amplitudes and relaxation times for Fourier components of the step edge displacement as functions of wave number q. The tau(q)(-1) at similar toT(m)/2 vary quite accurately with wavevector q as q(3) and show that surface diffusion is responsible for the relaxation at these lower temperatures for all clean single crystal surfaces studied. The temperature dependence of the step stiffnesses is very weak in the intervals 1190-1520 K for Pt, 990-1300 K for Pd and 1350-1680 K for Mo. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.