Formation, ripening, and stability of epitaxially strained island arrays

Helen R. Eisenberg and Daniel Kandel
Phys. Rev. B 71, 115423 – Published 23 March 2005

Abstract

We study the formation and evolution of coherent islands on lattice-mismatched epitaxially strained films using two-dimensional evolution simulations. Faceted islands form in films with anisotropic surface tension. Under annealing, these islands ripen until a stable array is formed. We show that the presence of a cusp in the surface tension is essential for reproducing the experimentally observed characteristics of the stable island array. It is also shown that a single cusp in the surface energy is sufficient in order to explain the island-shape transition and associated bimodal island-size distribution which occurs in growth experiments. In films with isotropic surface tension we observe and explain a new mode of growth in which a stable wavy surface is formed.

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  • Received 20 October 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.71.115423

©2005 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Helen R. Eisenberg* and Daniel Kandel

  • Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

  • *Electronic address: helen@engineering.ucsb.edu
  • Present address: KLA-Tencor Corporation (Israel), 4 Hatikshoret St., Migdal-Haemek, Israel.

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Issue

Vol. 71, Iss. 11 — 15 March 2005

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