The study of the roughening transition of a stepped surface of Cu(113) has been performed with the use of synchrotron grazing-incidence x-ray scattering. Surface roughening was observed directly from x-ray scans of the step superlattice reflection between 300 and 750 K. The results are interpreted with a theory of Villain, Grempel, and Lapujoulade, and the values of the transition temperature, the step-step repulsive energy, and the kink energy are determined to be 620±10 K, 7.4±0.9 meV, and 181±6.5 meV, respectively.

• Received 10 August 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.59.2447