Nonequilibrium stationary microstructures in surface chemical reactions

Abstract

Adsorbates with attractive lateral interactions between molecules in the presence of adsorption and thermal desorption are considered. We show that a sufficiently strong nonequilibrium reaction or the process of photoinduced desorption can destabilize uniform stationary phases of the adsorbates and lead to nonequilibrium microstructures whose wavelength is typically shorter than the diffusion length and may hence be on the micrometer to nanometer scale. Despite their small sizes, such microstructures are not destroyed by internal statistical fluctuations. © 1998 The American Physical Society.