By means of analytical and Monte Carlo simulations of interrupted step-flow growth on a vicinal substrate, it was shown that the asymptotic behavior of the adatom monomer density during recovery was dominated by a single exponential decay of the form, exp[-p2Dt/4L2], where D was the adatom diffusion coefficient over flat terraces, and L was the average width of the terraces. It was expected that, by monitoring the recovery of optical reflectance or reflection high-energy electron diffraction from such a surface, it would be possible to determine the adatom diffusion coefficient reliably under high-temperature growth conditions.

Determination of Surface-Diffusion Kinetics of Adatoms in Epitaxy under Step-Flow Growth Conditions X.D.Zhu: Physical Review B, 1998, 57[16], R9478-81