Initial stages of thin film growth in the presence of island-edge barriers

TL;DR

This paper models submonolayer thin film growth considering energy barriers at island edges, predicting new scaling behaviors of island density that align with recent experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical model accounting for edge barriers, revealing different scaling laws for island density in thin film growth.

Findings

Island density scales as F^{2i^*/(i^*+3)}

The model explains experimental results inconsistent with standard theory

Applicable to surfactant mediated growth and chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

A model of submonolayer thin film growth is studied, where the attachment of atoms to island edges is hindered by an energy barrier. A novel behavior of the density of islands, N_s, is predicted as a function of flux F and temperature T. For example, N_s scales as F^X with X=2i^*/(i^*+3), where i^* is the critical island size, in contrast with the standard result X=i^*/(i^*+2). The theory is applicable to surfactant mediated growth and chemical vapor deposition. It explains recent experiments, which are inconsistent with the standard theory.