Related papers: Strain relaxation models
A static variational model for shape formation in heteroepitaxial crystal growth is considered. The energy functional takes into account surface energy, elastic misfit-energy and nucleation energy of dislocations. A scaling law for the…
We propose a physical model which explains the existence of finite thickness wetting layers in epitaxially strained films. The finite wetting layer is shown to be stable due to the variation of the non-linear elastic free energy with film…
The structure, morphology, and electrical properties of epitaxial a-axis oriented thin films of Nd(0.2)Sr(0.8)MnO(3) are reported for thicknesses 10 nm <= t <= 150 nm. Films were grown with both tensile and compressive strain on various…
Strain effects on epitaxial thin films of LaNiO3 grown on different single crystalline substrates are studied by Raman scattering and first-principles simulation. New Raman modes, not present in bulk or fully-relaxed films, appear under…
We show a new way to stabilize epitaxial structures against transforming bulk stable phases for Fe thin films on a vicinal Cu(001) surface. Atomically-resolved observations by scanning tunneling microscopy reveal that high-density Cu steps…
We propose a model based on a Ginzburg-Landau approach to study a strain relief mechanism at a free interface of a non-hydrostatically stressed solid, commonly observed in thin-film growth. The evolving instability, known as the Grinfeld…
The linear dispersion relation for longwave surface perturbations, as derived by Levine et al. Phys. Rev. B 75, 205312 (2007) is extended to include a smooth surface energy anisotropy function with a variable anisotropy strength (from weak…
The purpose of this paper is to report some new experimental and theoretical results about the analysis of in-plane lattice spacing oscillations during two-dimensional (2D) homo and hetero epitaxial growth. The physical origin of these…
We propose a model for the description of the transport properties of metallic films on a large scale of slab thickness. This model is based on solving the linearized Boltzmann equation in relaxation-time approximation using {\it ab initio}…
In this work, we show the short-time existence of solutions of the evolution equations that represent the solid state dewetting of thin films through evaporation-condensation as a two dimensional sharp interface variational model. The…
A continuum dynamical model is developed to determine the morphological and compositional instabilities on the free surface of heteroepitaxial alloy films in the absence of growth. We use linear stability analysis to study the early…
SrTiO$_3$ thin films were used as a model system to study the effects of strain and epitaxial constraint on structural phase transitions of perovskite films. The basic phenomena revealed will apply to a variety of important structural…
The evolution in the surface morphology of epitaxial graphene films and 6H-SiC(0001) substrates is studied by electron channeling contrast imaging. Whereas film thickness is determined by growth temperature only, increasing growth times at…
We study stripe formation in two-dimensional systems under directional quenching in a phase-diffusion approximation including non-adiabatic boundary effects. We find stripe formation through simple traveling waves for all angles relative to…
We report on the growth mechanism of YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO). Our study is based on the analysis of ultrathin, YBa2Cu3O7-x layers in c-axis oriented YBa2Cu3O7-x / PrBa2Cu3O7-x superlattices. We have found that the release of epitaxial strain in…
When stressed sufficiently, solid materials yield and deform plastically via reorganization of microscopic constituents. Indeed, it is possible to alter the micro-structure of materials by judicious application of stress, an empirical pro-…
Epitaxial strain plays an important role in determining physical properties of perovskite ferroelectric oxide thin films. However, it is very challenging to directly measure properties such as polarization in ultrathin strained films using…
It is shown how the combination of atomic deposition and nonlinear diffusion may lead, below a critical temperature, to the growth of nonuniform layers on a substrate. The dynamics of such a system is of the Cahn-Hilliard type, supplemented…
An equilibrium phase diagram for the shape of compressively strained free-hanging films is developed by total strain energy minimization. For small strain gradients {\Delta}{\epsilon}, the film wrinkles, while for sufficiently large…
In this work a simple solid-on-solid (SOS) model of inhomogeneous films epitaxial growth is presented. The results of the computer simulations based on the random deposition (RD) enriched by a local relaxation which tends to maximize the…