Capture zone area distributions for nucleation and growth of islands during submonolayer deposition
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011 (United States)
- Department of Physics, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872 (China)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Department of Mathematics, and Ames Laboratory–USDOE,Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011 (United States)
A fundamental evolution equation is developed to describe the distribution of areas of capture zones (CZs) associated with islands formed by homogeneous nucleation and growth during submonolayer deposition on perfect flat surfaces. This equation involves various quantities which characterize subtle spatial aspects of the nucleation process. These quantities in turn depend on the complex stochastic geometry of the CZ tessellation of the surface, and their detailed form determines the CZ area distribution (CZD) including its asymptotic features. For small CZ areas, behavior of the CZD reflects the critical island size, i. For large CZ areas, it may reflect the probability for nucleation near such large CZs. Predictions are compared with kinetic Monte Carlo simulation data for models with two-dimensional compact islands with i = 1 (irreversible island formation by diffusing adatom pairs) and i = 0 (adatoms spontaneously convert to stable nuclei, e.g., by exchange with the substrate).
- OSTI ID:
- 22678872
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 145, Issue 21; Other Information: (c) 2016 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9606
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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