Surface premelting phenomena

Abstract A brief review of the theory and the supporting experimental results for various surface premelting phenomena occurring at the crystal-vapor interface is presented. Surface roughening of low-index and vicinal faces as well as surface melting and surface roughening of the crystal-quasi-liquid layer interface is discussed. It is concluded that the experimental methods related to the crystal growth phenomena are more sensitive to surface melting while the diffraction methods are used predominantly to study surface melting.