Morphological and kinetic consequences of scratching of the growing crystal surface

Using the atomic-force microscopy (AFM) it is shown that even a minor local contact of an AFM probe with a growing crystal surface at the nanoscale leads to important crystallogenetic (morphological and kinetic) consequences. These non-linear effects are the thickening of steps, the huge fluctuations, and a loss of morphological stability of the surface even at the distance of dozens of micrometres from the contact area. Near the equilibrium state, we observed the phenomenon of simultaneous growth and dissolution at the neighbouring points of one step. (paper)