We demonstrate that surface morphogenesis in compressed thin films may result from spatially correlated plastic activity. A soft glassy film strongly adhering to a smooth and rigid substrate and subjected to uniaxial compression, indeed, does not undergo any global elastic pattern-forming instability, but responds plastically via localized burst events that self-organize, leading to the emergence of a series of parallel ridges transverse to the compression axis. This phenomenon has been completely overlooked, but results from common features of the plastic response of glasses hence should be highly generic for compressed glassy thin films.

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• Plasticity
• Surface & interfacial phenomena
• Surface instabilities
• Amorphous materials
• Glassy systems
• Thin films
• Molecular dynamics