Discretisation of a stochastic continuum equation of ion-sputtered surfaces

Abstract

The generalised continuum theory model of the dynamical evolution of surfaces sputtered by ion-bombardment is a noisy Kuramoto-Sivashinsky type partial differential equation. For some generic cases of sputtering parameters, existing similar equations have shed a great deal of light and therefore provided some understanding of the intricacies of evolving ion-sputtered surfaces without a direct solution of the generalised model. However, recent results have demonstrated a wider range of scaling regimes of the sputtering conditions, a large number of which have no similar existing solved models in other research fields for comparison, and whose characteristics are therefore largely unknown. In this paper, a discretisation of the generalised continuum model is performed for direct numerical simulations, the results of which are applicable to all manner of simulations required for the different possible scenarios in the dynamical evolution of sputtered surfaces. The approximation errors and implementation of the results in any such simulation are also discussed.