Ripple rotation in multilayer homoepitaxy

We have investigated the homoepitaxial growth of Ag(110) in the multilayer regime. After deposition of 30 monolayers of Ag at a temperature of 210 K a ripplelike surface instability is produced and the ridges of the ripples, as well as the majority steps, are found to be parallel to (1 (1) over bar 0) which is the thermodynamically favored orientation. As the deposition te mperature is decreased to 130 K, an unexpected 90 degrees switch of the rip ple orientation is observed. The ridges of the ripples and the steps are in this case parallel to (100). In the intermediate temperature range a check erboard of rectangular mounds results. We interpret our results in terms of the peculiar hierarchy of interlayer and intralayer diffusion barriers pre sent on the anisotropic Ag(110) surface.