Related papers: Two Approaches to Dislocation Nucleation in the Su…
We use Monte-Carlo simulations to study island formation in the growth of thin semiconducting films deposited on lattice-mismatched substrates. It is known that islands nucleate with critical nuclei of about one atom and grow two…
We propose a strategy for enabling photodissociation of a normally photostable molecule through coupling to a nanoparticle plasmon. The large possible coupling on the single-molecule level combined with the highly lossy nature of plasmonic…
In the electrochemical deposition of thin films the measurement of the current-time curve does not allow for a direct determination of the nucleus growth law, electrode surface coverage and mean film thickness. In this work we present a…
The fundamental dislocation processes of glide, climb, and annihilation are studied on diffusive time scales within the framework of a continuum field theory, the Phase Field Crystals (PFC) model. Glide and climb are examined for single…
We study numerically the minimum energy path and energy barriers for dislocation nucleation in a two-dimensional atomistic model of strained epitaxial layers on a substrate with lattice misfit. Stress relaxation processes from coherent to…
Island formation in strain-free heteroepitaxial deposition of thin films is analyzed using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of two minimal lattice models and scaling approaches. The transition from layer-by-layer (LBL) to island (ISL) growth…
Dislocation and grain boundary melting are studied in three dimensions using the Phase Field Crystal method. Isolated dislocations are found to melt radially outward from their core, as the localized excess elastic energy drives a power law…
Nickel-based superalloys play a major role in many technologically relevant high temperature applications. Understanding and predicting the evolution of the phase microstructure during high temperature creep together with the evolution of…
Controlling magnetic order on ultrafast timescales, driven by spintronic and recording applications, is one of the main directions of current research in magnetism. Despite major advances in understanding the temporal evolution of magnetic…
We study the interplay between an isostructural critical point and dislocation mediated two-dimensional melting, using a combination of Landau and continuum elasticity theory. If dislocations are excluded, coupling to the elastic degrees of…
A possible mechanism for the formation of a 90{\deg} misfit dislocation at the Ge/Si(001) interface through homogeneous nucleation is identified from atomic scale calculations where a minimum energy path connecting the coherent epitaxial…
Nucleation is an activated process in which the system has to overcome a free energy barrier in order for a first-order phase transition between the metastable and the stable phases to take place. In the liquid-to-solid transition the…
The nucleation and growth of two--dimensional islands is studied with Monte Carlo simulations of a pair--bond solid--on--solid model of epitaxial growth. The conventional description of this problem in terms of a well--defined critical…
We investigate a phase-field-crystal model for homogeneous nucleation. Instead of solving the time evolution of a density field towards equilibrium we use a String Method to identify saddle points in phase space. The saddle points allow to…
We review how phase-field models contributed to the understanding of various aspects of crystal nucleation including homogeneous and heterogeneous processes, and their role in microstructure evolution. We recall results obtained both by the…
We use a new variant of Molecular Static method for simulation of the atomic structure near nanovoids. In our model an iterative procedure is employed, in which the atomic structure in the void vicinity and the parameter determining the…
Large-scale atomistic calculations, using empirical potentials for modeling semiconductors, have been performed on a stressed system with linear surface defects like steps. Although the elastic limits of systems with surface defects remain…
The morphological stability of two-dimensional islands nucleated on a substrate during vacuum or vapour-phase atom deposition is investigated. Using simple scaling arguments, it is shown that, contrary to expectation, dendritic islands may…
We performed classical molecular dynamics simulations to investigate, from an atomistic point of view, the formation of dislocations during the epitaxial growth of Ge on Si. We show that simulations at 900 and 1000 K with deposition rates…
We derive a phase field crystal model that couples the diffusive evolution of a microscopic structure with the fast dynamics of a macroscopic velocity field, explicitly accounting for the relaxation of elastic excitations. This model…