Island, pit and groove formation in strained heteroepitaxy

Abstract

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 conditions for deposition rates slow compared with intrinsic surface roughening rates. They are semi-spherical and truncated conical for high and low temperature cases respectively. Annealing of films at high temperature leads to the formation of closely packed islands consistent with an instability theory. At low temperature, pits form via a layer-by-layer nucleation mechanism and subsequently develop into grooves.

arXiv comment4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Instabilities in crystal growth by atomic or molecular beams
• Competing roughening mechanisms in strained heteroepitaxy: a fast kinetic Monte Carlo study
• Quantum Dot Self-assembly in Growth of Strained-Layer Thin Films: a Kinet ic Monte-Carlo Study

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Phase field crystal dynamics for binary systems: Derivation from dynamical density functional theory, amplitude equation formalism, and applications to alloy heterostructures
• Computation of Strained Epitaxial Growth in Three Dimensions by Kinetic Monte Carlo
• Morphological instability, evolution, and scaling in strained epitaxial films: An amplitude equation analysis of the phase field crystal model
• Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of faceted islands in heteroepitaxy using multi-state lattice model