Universal correlators and distributions as experimental signatures of (2 + 1)-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang growth

¹ Physics Department, Barnard College, Columbia University - New York, NY 10027, USA
² Department of Applied Physics, University of Groningen - Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands

Received: 29 January 2014
Accepted: 24 February 2014

Abstract

We examine height-height correlations in the transient growth regime of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class, with a particular focus on the spatial covariance of the underlying two-point statistics, higher-dimensional analog of the KPZ Class Airy₁ process. Making comparison to AFM kinetic roughening data in 2d organic thin films, we use our universal KPZ spatial covariance to extract key scaling parameters for this experimental system. Additionally, we explore the i) height, ii) local roughness, and iii) extreme value distributions characteristic of these oligomer films, finding compelling agreement in all instances with our numerical integration of the KPZ equation itself. Finally, investigating nonequilibrium relaxation phenomena exhibited by KPZ Class models, we have unearthed a universal KPZ ageing kinetics. In experiments with ample data in the time domain, our KPZ Euler temporal covariance will allow a quick, independent estimate of the central KPZ scaling parameter.