Damping of Growth Oscillations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how growth oscillations damp during epitaxial growth, using simulations and theory to identify the transition from smooth to rough growth and the associated desynchronization phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a scaling theory and simulation results that describe the damping of oscillations and the crossover conditions in epitaxial growth on high-symmetry surfaces.

Findings

Damping of oscillations occurs after depositing (D/F)^delta monolayers.

The crossover from smooth to rough growth is characterized by a specific scaling law.

Layer desynchronization occurs over distances larger than a coherence length proportional to l^2.

Abstract

Computer simulations and scaling theory are used to investigate the damping of oscillations during epitaxial growth on high-symmetry surfaces. The crossover from smooth to rough growth takes place after the deposition of (D/F)^\delta monolayers, where D and F are the surface diffusion constant and the deposition rate, respectively, and the exponent \delta=2/3 on a two-dimensional surface. At the transition, layer-by-layer growth becomes desynchronized on distances larger than a layer coherence length proportional l^2, where l is a typical distance between two-dimensional islands in the submonolayer region of growth.