Dewetting of an ultrathin solid film on a lattice-matched or amorphous substrate

Abstract

An evolution partial differential equation for the surface of a non-wetting single-crystal film in an attractive substrate potential is derived and used to study the dynamics of a pinhole for the varying initial depth of a pinhole and the strengths of the potential and the surface energy anisotropy. The results of the simulations demonstrate how the corresponding parameters may lead to complete or partial dewetting of the film. Anisotropy of the surface energy, through faceting of the pinhole walls, is found to most drastically affect the time to film rupture. In particular, the similations support the conjecture that the strong anisotropy is capable of the complete suppression of dewetting even when the attractive substrate potential is strong.

arXiv commentSubmitted to PRB

References in corpus (3)

• Dynamics of Phase Separation of Crystal Surfaces
• Dewetting of a solid monolayer
• Motion of Contact Line of a Crystal Over the Edge of Solid Mask in Epitaxial Lateral Overgrowth

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Atomic step motion during the dewetting of ultra-thin films
• Morphologies and kinetics of a dewetting ultrathin solid film
• Comparative study of a solid film dewetting in an attractive substrate potentials with the exponential and the algebraic decay
• Interplay of Quantum Size Effect, Anisotropy and Surface Stress Shapes the Instability of Thin Metal Films