On the morphological stability of two-dimensional epitaxial islands at high deposition rates

TL;DR

This paper investigates how high deposition rates can stabilize the shape of two-dimensional epitaxial islands, potentially transforming dendritic islands into compact ones, with implications for material deposition processes.

Contribution

It introduces a scaling argument showing that increasing deposition rates can stabilize island morphology, challenging previous expectations.

Findings

Dendritic islands can become compact at high deposition rates.

Critical nucleus size influences morphological stability.

Implications for Pt deposition on Pt(111) are discussed.

Abstract

The morphological stability of two-dimensional islands nucleated on a substrate during vacuum or vapour-phase atom deposition is investigated. Using simple scaling arguments, it is shown that, contrary to expectation, dendritic islands may be converted into compact ones by increasing the deposition rate, provided that the size of the critical nucleus is large enough. Implications for recent observations of Pt deposition on Pt(111) are discussed.