A simple solid-on-solid model of epitaxial thin films growth: surface morphology anisotropy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a generalized solid-on-solid model for epitaxial thin film growth, highlighting how anisotropy in surface morphology arises from anisotropic control parameters like binding energy and diffusion barriers, confirmed through correlation analysis.

Contribution

It extends a simple epitaxial growth model to include anisotropic effects driven by control parameter differences, providing a theoretical framework for surface morphology anisotropy.

Findings

Anisotropy in surface morphology is caused by differences in diffusion barriers.

Antisymmetric correlations are observed in in-plane directions for antisymmetric binding.

Experimental confirmation links diffusion barrier differences to surface anisotropy.

Abstract

In this paper we present a generalization of a simple solid-on-solid epitaxial model of thin films growth, when surface morphology anisotropy is provoked by anisotropy in model control parameters: binding energy and/or diffusion barrier. The anisotropy is discussed in terms of the height-height correlation function. It was experimentally confirmed that the difference in diffusion barriers yields anisotropy in morphology of the surface. We got antisymmetric correlations in the two in-plane directions for antisymmetric binding.