Thermal roughening transition

The first first direct experimental evidence for a roughening transition was reported in 1979. Several groups have studied the thermal behavior of the basal plane of a hexagonal close-packed He crystal. In a beautiful experiment Balibar and Casting obtained for this surface a roughening temperature of Tk 1.2K. 

More recently, the question of thermal roughening has also been addressed in the study of metal surfaces. Detailed He difiraction studies from the high Miller index (113) surface of Cu and Ni proved the existence of a roughening transition on these surface. These studies were performed by means of He scattering. Let us make first two short comments. 

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