Determining the energetics of vicinal perovskite oxide surfaces

The energetics of vicinal SrTiO${}_3$(001) and DyScO${}_3$(110), prototypical perovskite vicinal surfaces, has been studied using topographic atomic force microscopy imaging. The kink formation and strain relaxation energies are extracted from a statistical analysis of the step meandering. Both perovskite surfaces have very similar kink formation energies and exhibit a similar triangular step undulation. Our experiments suggest that the energetics of perovskite oxide surfaces is mainly governed by the local oxygen coordination.