Morphologies and kinetics of a dewetting ultrathin solid film

Abstract

The surface evolution model based on geometric partial differential equation is used to numerically study the kinetics of dewetting and dynamic morphologies for the localized pinhole defect in the surface of the ultrathin solid film with the strongly anisotropic surface energy. Depending on parameters such as the initial depth and width of the pinole, the strength of the attractive substrate potential and the strength of the surface energy anisotropy, the pinhole may either extend to the substrate and thus rupture the film, or evolve to the quasiequilibrium shape while the rest of the film surface undergoes phase separation into a hill-and-valley structure followed by coarsening. Overhanging (non-graph) morphologies are possible for deep, narrow (slit-like) pinholes.

References in corpus (6)

• Dynamics of Phase Separation of Crystal Surfaces
• Coarsening of Surface Structures in Unstable Epitaxial Growth
• Kink dynamics in a one-dimensional growing surface
• A Model for Isotropic Crystal Growth from Vapor on a Patterned Substrate
• Dewetting of an ultrathin solid film on a lattice-matched or amorphous substrate
• 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
• Analysis of a combined influence of substrate wetting and surface electromigration on a thin film stability and dynamical morphologies
• 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