The roughness of tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) films grown at room temperature is measured as a function of film thickness by atomic force microscopy, to extract roughness and growth exponents of alpha approximately 0.39 and beta approximately 0-0.1, respectively. This extremely small growth exponent shows that some form of surface diffusion and relaxation operates at a homologous tempera...

The dynamics of sharp interfaces separating two nonhydrostatically stressed solids is analyzed using the idea that the rate of mass transport across the interface is proportional to the thermodynamic potential difference across the interface. The solids are allowed to exchange mass by transforming one solid into the other, thermodynamic relations for the transformation of a mass element are der...

We calculate the low-temperature series of the free energy in absolutevalue solid-on-solid (ASOS) model to order u23 using finite-lattice method. The property of the obtained series and the behavior of their Padé approximants confirms us that the roughening transition in ASOS model is of Kosterlitz-Thouless type.

Recent developments in fracture dynamics include the discovery of elastic waves which propagate along moving crack fronts in three-dimensional solids, and the identification of possible sources of the roughening and low terminal speeds of tensile cracks in brittle amorphous solids. Those topics are discussed briefly here.