This series of books, which is published at the rate of about one per year, addresses fundamental problems in materials science. The contents cover a broad range of topics from small clusters of atoms to engineering materials and involve chemistry, physics, and engineering, with length scales ranging from Angstroms up to millimeters. The emphasis is on basic science rather than on applications. Each book focuses on a single area of current interest and brings together leading experts to give an up-to-date discussion of their work and the work of others. Each article contains enough references that the interested reader can access the relevant literature. Thanks are given to the Center for Fundamental Materials Research at Michigan State University for supporting this series. M. F. Thorpe, Series Editor E-mail: thorpe@pa. msu. edu v PREFACE th th During the period 4 -8 August 1996, a conference with the same title as this book was held in Traverse City, Michigan. That conference was organized as a sequel to an interesting and successful WEM workshop in a similar area run by Profs. Hans Bonzel and Bill Mullins in May 1995. This book contains papers presented at the Traverse City conference. The book focuses on: atomic processes, step structure and dynamics; and their effect on surface and interface structures and on the relaxation kinetics of larger leng- scale nonequilibrium morphologies."

This series of books, which is published at the rate of about one per year, addresses fundamental problems in materials science. The contents cover a broad range of topics from small clusters of atoms to engineering materials and involve chemistry, physics, and engineering, with length scales ranging from Angstroms up to millimeters. The emphasis is on basic science rather than on applications. Each book focuses on a single area of current interest and brings together leading experts to give an up-to-date discussion of their work and the work of others. Each article contains enough references that the interested reader can access the relevant literature. Thanks are given to the Center for Fundamental Materials Research at Michigan State University for supporting this series. M. F. Thorpe, Series Editor E-mail: thorpe@pa. msu. edu v PREFACE th th During the period 4 -8 August 1996, a conference with the same title as this book was held in Traverse City, Michigan. That conference was organized as a sequel to an interesting and successful WEM workshop in a similar area run by Profs. Hans Bonzel and Bill Mullins in May 1995. This book contains papers presented at the Traverse City conference. The book focuses on: atomic processes, step structure and dynamics; and their effect on surface and interface structures and on the relaxation kinetics of larger leng- scale nonequilibrium morphologies.