Interfacial mixing in heteroepitaxial growth
Abstract
We investigate the growth of a film of some element B on a substrate made of another substrance A in a model of molecular beam epitaxy. A vertical exchange mechanism allows the A-atoms to stay on the growing surface with a certain probability. Using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations as well as scaling arguments, the incorporation of the A's into the growing B-layer is investigated. Moreover we develop a rate equation theory for this process. In the limit of perfect layer-by-layer growth, the density of A-atoms decays in the B-film like the inverse squared distance from the interface. The power law is cut off exponentially at a characteristic thickness of the interdiffusion zone that depends on the rate of exchange of a B-adatom with an A-atom in the surface and on the system size. Kinetic roughening changes the exponents. Then the thickness of the interdiffusion zone is determined by the diffusion length.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0306073,
title = {Interfacial mixing in heteroepitaxial growth},
author = {Boris Bierwald and Michael von den Driesch and Zeno Farkas and Sang Bub Lee and Dietrich E. Wolf},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0306073},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
11 pages, 11 figures