Diffusion on amorphous surfaces represents a little-studied physical phenomenon that controls several important kinds of material processing. To elucidate some general features of this phenomenon, Arrhenius parameters were obtained for the surface self-diffusion of amorphous Si by measuring the formation kinetics of hemispherical grained Si. Comparison with literature results suggested the existence of a significant temperature dependence in the activation energy and pre-exponential factor for total mass transport. A physical model was developed to showed that this behavior should characterize diffusion on amorphous surfaces in general.

Temperature-Dependent Surface Diffusion Parameters on Amorphous Materials. D.Llera-Hurlburt, A.S.Dalton, E.G.Seebauer: Surface Science, 2002, 504, 244-52