We study the vicinal surface with adsorption below the roughening temperature, using the restricted solid-on-solid model coupled with the Ising model. By the product-wavefunction renormalization group method, we calculate the surface gradient $p$ and the adsorption coverage $\Theta$ as a function of the Andreev field $\eta$ which makes surface tilt. Combining Monte Carlo calculations, we show that there emerges effective attraction between the steps. This attractive interaction leads to instability against step bunching.
Categories: cond-mat.stat-mech cond-mat.mtrl-sci