Initial stages of thin film growth in the presence of island-edge barriers

Abstract

A model of submonolayer thin film growth is studied, where the attachment of atoms to island edges is hindered by an energy barrier. A novel behavior of the density of islands, N_s, is predicted as a function of flux F and temperature T. For example, N_s scales as F^X with X=2i^*/(i^*+3), where i^* is the critical island size, in contrast with the standard result X=i^*/(i^*+2). The theory is applicable to surfactant mediated growth and chemical vapor deposition. It explains recent experiments, which are inconsistent with the standard theory.

References in corpus (2)

• Determination of step--edge barriers to interlayer transport from surface morphology during the initial stages of homoepitaxial growth
• Atomistic Aspects of Diffusion and Growth on the Si and Ge (111) Surfaces

Cited by in corpus (13)

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• Analyzing Capture Zone Distributions (CZD) in Growth: Theory and Applications
• How "hot precursors" modify island nucleation: A rate-equations model
• Point Island Models for Nucleation and Growth of Supported Nanoclusters during Surface Deposition
• Real-Time Observation of Self-Interstitial Reactions on an Atomically Smooth Silicon Surface
• Modeling one-dimensional island growth with mass-dependent detachment rates
• Submonolayer growth with decorated island edges
• Island coarsening in one-dimensional models with partially and completely reversible aggregation
• Self-consistent rate theory for submonolayer surface growth of multi-component systems
• Meandering instability of curved step edges on growth of a crystalline cone