A one-dimensional model for the growth of CdTe quantum dots on Si substrates

TL;DR

This paper presents a kinetic model for CdTe quantum dot growth on Si substrates, capturing experimental size distributions and predicting a growth mode transition with temperature.

Contribution

A new kinetic deposition model incorporating diffusion and evaporation explains observed quantum dot features and predicts growth mode transitions.

Findings

Model qualitatively reproduces experimental size distributions.

Predicts transition from Stranski-Krastanow to Volmer-Weber growth modes.

Highlights temperature-dependent growth behavior.

Abstract

Recent experiments involving CdTe films grown on Si(111) substrates by hot wall epitaxy revealed features not previously observed [S. O. Ferreira \textit{et al.}, J. Appl. Phys. \textbf{93}, 1195 (2003)]. This system, which follows the Volmer-Weber growth mode with nucleation of isolated 3D islands for less than one monolayer of evaporated material, was described by a peculiar behavior of the quantum dot (QD) size distributions. In this work, we proposed a kinetic deposition model to reproduce these new features. The model, which includes thermally activated diffusion and evaporation of CdTe, qualitatively reproduced the experimental QD size distributions. Moreover, the model predicts a transition from Stranski-Krastanow growth mode at lower temperatures to Volmer-Weber growth mode at higher ones characterized through the QD width distributions.