Related papers: Nonlinear effects for island coarsening and stabil…
We investigate the formation and the coarsening dynamics of islands in a strained epitaxial semi-conductor film. These islands are commonly observed in thin films undergoing a morphological instability due to the presence of the elasto…
We study the morphological evolution of strained islands in growing crystal films by use of a continuum description including wetting, elasticity and deposition flux. Wetting breaks translational invariance, allowing the flux to tune…
A strained epitaxial film deposited on a deformable substrate undergoes a morphological instability relaxing the elastic energy by surface diffusion. The nonlinear and nonlocal dynamical equations of such films with wetting interactions are…
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 consider a variational model for the formation of islands in heteroepitaxial growth on unbounded domains. We first derive the scaling regimes of the minimal energy in terms of the volume of the film and the amplitude of the…
We study the formation and evolution of coherent islands on lattice mismatched epitaxially strained films. Faceted islands form in films with aniostropic surface tension. Under annealing, these islands ripen until a stable array is formed,…
Morphological properties of strained epitaxial films are examined through a mesoscopic approach developed to incorporate both the film crystalline structure and standard continuum theory. Film surface profiles and properties, such as…
Morphology evolution and coarsening of metal nanoislands is computed within the framework of a surface diffusion-type model that includes the effects of the electron energy confinement within the film, the charge spillage at the…
We introduce an off-lattice model with continuous particle distances and pair-potential interactions which allows for the efficient simulation of strained heteroepitaxial growth by means of kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations. We discuss…
The formation of dislocation-free three-dimensional islands during the heteroepitaxial growth of lattice-mismatched materials has been observed experimentally for several material systems. The equilibrium shape of the islands is governed by…
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 morphology of crystalline thin films evolving on flat rigid substrates by condensation of extra film atoms or by evaporation of their own atoms in the surrounding vapor is studied in the framework of the theory of Stress Driven…
The quantum size effect (QSE) and strain effect are two key factors influencing the surface morphology of thin films, which can increase film surface roughness through QSE-induced thickness oscillation and strain-induced island formation,…
Thin film deposition on weakly interacting substrates exhibits a unique growth mode characterized by initially strong island formation and rapidly increasing roughness, which reaches a maximum and subsequently decreases as the film returns…
The roughness of vapor-deposited thin films can display a nonmonotonic dependence on film thickness, if the smoothening of the small-scale features of the substrate dominates over growth-induced roughening in the early stage of evolution.…
We consider the shape evolution of two-dimensional islands on a crystal surface in the regime where mass transport is exclusively along the island edge. A directed mass current due to surface electromigration causes the island to migrate in…
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…
Using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, we develop a framework to relate morphological properties and microscopic dynamics during island growth, coalescence, and initial formation of continuous heteroepitaxial films. The average island width…
We study the morphological evolution of strained heteroepitaxial films using a kinetic Monte Carlo method in three dimensions. The elastic part of the problem uses a Green's function method. Isolated islands are observed under deposition…
The coarsening dynamics of three-dimensional islands on a growing film is discussed. It is assumed that the origin of the initial instability of a planar surface is the Ehrlich-Schwoebel step-edge barrier for adatom diffusion. Two…