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

TL;DR

This paper investigates how wetting effects influence the morphological stability of short-period strained multilayers during growth, combining elastic, wetting, and deposition dynamics, with results aligning with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a dynamical model that integrates elastic fields, wetting effects, and deposition processes to analyze multilayer stability, providing new insights especially for short-period multilayers.

Findings

Wetting effects significantly impact stability in short-period multilayers.

Model predictions align with experimental observations in specific material systems.

Strain-balanced multilayers exhibit distinct stability characteristics.

Abstract

We explore the morphological stability during the growth of strained multilayer structures in a dynamical model which describes the coupling of elastic fields, wetting effect, and deposition process. We quantitatively show the significant influence of the wetting effect on the stability properties, in particular for short-period multilayers. Our results are qualitatively similar to recent experimental observations in AlAs/InAs/InP(001) system. We also give predictions for strain-balanced multilayers.