Determining the energetics of vicinal perovskite oxide surfaces
  The energetics of vicinal SrTiO$_3$(001) and DyScO$_3$(110), prototypical perovskite vicinal surfaces, has been studied using topographic atomic force microscopy imaging. The kink formation and strain relaxation energies are extracted from a statistical analysis of the step meandering. Both perovskite surfaces have very similar kink formation energies and exhibit a similar triangular step undulation. Our experiments suggest that the energetics of perovskite oxide surfaces is mainly governed by the local oxygen coordination. 
Werner A. Wessels and Tjeerd R.J. Bollmann and Gertjan Koster and   Harold J.W. Zandvliet and Guus Rijnders
cond-mat.mtrl-sci