Related papers: Equilibrium shape and dislocation nucleation in st…
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…
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…
We study the energetics of island formation in Stranski-Krastanow growth within a parameter-free approach. It is shown that an optimum island size exists for a given coverage and island density if changes in the wetting layer morphology…
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…
The electromigration-induced shape evolution of two-dimensional vacancy islands on a crystal surface is studied using a continuum approach. We consider the regime where mass transport is restricted to terrace diffusion in the interior of…
The Stranski-Krastanov growth kinetics of undislocated (coherent) 3-dimensional islands is studied with a self-consistent mean field rate theory that takes account of elastic interactions between the islands. The latter are presumed to…
A mean field theory is developed for the calculation of the surface free energy of the staggered BCSOS, (or six vertex) model as function of the surface orientation and of temperature. The model approximately describes surfaces of crystals…
Stranski-Krastanov strained islands undergo a shape anisotropy transition as they grow in size, finally evolving toward nanowires. This effect has been explained until now via simple energetic models that neglect thermodynamics. We…
A continuum theory is employed to numerically study the equilibrium orientation and defect structures of a circular cylindrical particle with flat ends under a homeotropic anchoring condition in a uniform nematic medium. Different aspect…
To learn about basic aspects of nano-scale spherical molecular shells during their formation, spherically curved two-dimensional N-particle Lennard-Jones systems are simulated, studying curvature evolution paths at zero-temperature. For…
The problem of heterogeneous nucleation of second-phase in alloys in the vicinity of elastic defects is considered. The defect can be a dislocation line or a crack tip residing in a crystalline solid. We use the Ginzburg-Landau equation to…
The effects of a surfactant on two-dimensional pattern formation in epitaxial growth are explored theoretically using a simple model, in which an adatom becomes immobile only after overcoming a large energy barrier as it exchanges positions…
This work unravels the atomic details of the interaction of solute atoms with nanoscale crystalline defects. The complexity of this phenomenon is elucidated through detailed atom probe tomographic investigations on epitaxially-strained,…
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…
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 use the phase field crystal model to study nucleation of edge dislocations in two dimensions under an applied stress field. A dislocation dipole nucleates under the applied stress, consistent with Burgers vector conservation. The phase…
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…
The equilibrium shapes and energies of coherent strained InP islands grown on GaP have been investigated with a hybrid approach that has been previously applied to InAs islands on GaAs. This combines calculations of the surface energies by…
We study the nucleation of GaN islands grown by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy on AlN(0001) in a Stranski-Krastanov mode. In particular, we assess the variation of their height and density as a function of GaN coverage. We show that…
We describe a theoretical study of the role of adsorbate interactions in island nucleation and growth, using Ag/Pt(111) heteroepitaxy as an example. From density-functional theory, we obtain the substrate-mediated Ag adatom pair interaction…