Wetting layer thickness and early evolution of epitaxially strained thin films

Abstract

We propose a physical model which explains the existence of finite thickness wetting layers in epitaxially strained films. The finite wetting layer is shown to be stable due to the variation of the non-linear elastic free energy with film thickness. We show that anisotropic surface tension gives rise to a metastable enlarged wetting layer. The perturbation amplitude needed to destabilize this wetting layer decreases with increasing lattice mismatch. We observe the development of faceted islands in unstable films.

4 pages, 3 eps figures

References in corpus (1)

• Dislocation Free Island Formation in Heteroepitaxial Growth: An Equilibrium Study

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• Wetting effect and morphological stability in growth of short-period strained multilayers