Controlling surface morphologies by time-delayed feedback

Abstract

We propose a new method to control the roughness of a growing surface, via a time-delayed feedback scheme. As an illustration, we apply this method to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation in 1+1 dimensions and show that the effective growth exponent of the surface width can be stabilized at any desired value in the interval [0.25,0.33], for a significant length of time. The method is quite general and can be applied to a wide range of growth phenomena. A possible experimental realization is suggested.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure