Growth of Thin Films

When the adsorbate coverage exceeds the monolayer range, one speaks about thin film growth. The oriented growth of a crystalline film on a single-crystal substrate is referred to as epitaxy, which, in turn, is subdivided into homoepitaxy (when both film and substrate are of the same material) and heteroepitaxy (when film and substrate are different). The film growth is controlled by the interplay of thermodynamics and kinetics. The general trends in film growth are understood within the thermodynamic approach in terms of the relative surface and interface energies. On the other hand, film growth is a non-equilibrium kinetic process, in which the rate-limiting steps affect the net growth mode. In this chapter, the surface phenomena involved in thin film growth and their effect on the growth mode, as well as on the structure and morphology of the grown films, are discussed.

[1]  T. Michely,et al.  Temperature dependence of the sputtering morphology of Pt(111) , 1991 .

[2]  Kern,et al.  Initial stages of Cu epitaxy on Ni(100): Postnucleation and a well-defined transition in critical island size. , 1996, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[3]  B. Voigtländer,et al.  MAGIC ISLANDS IN SI/SI(111) HOMOEPITAXY , 1998 .

[4]  Zhang,et al.  Atomic processes in low temperature Pt-dendrite growth on Pt(111). , 1996, Physical review letters.

[5]  R. People,et al.  Calculation of critical layer thickness versus lattice mismatch for GexSi1−x/Si strained‐layer heterostructures , 1985 .

[6]  H. Brune.  Microscopic view of epitaxial metal growth: nucleation and aggregation , 1998 .

[7]  Yuh‐Lin Wang,et al.  DIRECT OBSERVATION OF TWO DIMENSIONAL MAGIC CLUSTERS , 1998 .

[8]  Jacobson,et al.  Growth morphology and the equilibrium shape: The role of "surfactants" in Ge/Si island formation. , 1993, Physical review letters.

[9]  Richard L. Schwoebel,et al.  Step Motion on Crystal Surfaces. II , 1966 .

[10]  R. Behm,et al.  Sb-enhanced nucleation in the homoepitaxial growth of Ag(111) , 1998 .

[11]  F. Family,et al.  Kinetics of submonolayer and multilayer epitaxial growth , 1996 .

[12]  M. A. Herman,et al.  Molecular Beam Epitaxy: Fundamentals and Current Status , 1989 .

[13]  Kobayashi,et al.  Hydrogen-mediated epitaxy of Ag on Si(111) as studied by low-energy ion scattering. , 1991, Physical review letters.

[14]  F. Hudda,et al.  Atomic View of Surface Self‐Diffusion: Tungsten on Tungsten , 1966 .

[15]  T. Michely,et al.  The homoepitaxial growth of Pt on Pt(111) studied with STM , 1992 .

[16]  B. Poelsema,et al.  Chapter 3 Epitaxial growth modes far from equilibrium , 1997 .

[17]  Stroscio,et al.  Homoepitaxial growth of iron and a real space view of reflection-high-energy-electron diffraction. , 1993, Physical review letters.

[18]  John R. Arthur.  Molecular beam epitaxy , 2002 .

[19]  P. Zahl,et al.  Interplay of surface morphology, strain relief, and surface stress during surfactant mediated epitaxy of Ge on Si , 1999 .

[20]  J. Anderson,et al.  Nucleation and growth of thin films , 1978 .

[21]  A. Zotov,et al.  Present status of solid phase epitaxy of vacuum-deposited silicon , 1989 .

[22]  Klaus Kern,et al.  Measuring surface diffusion from nucleation island densities , 1999 .

[23]  J. Venables,et al.  Nucleation and growth of thin films , 1984 .

[24]  H. Lüth.  Chemical beam epitaxy — a child of surface science , 1994 .

[25]  L. Sander,et al.  Diffusion-limited aggregation, a kinetic critical phenomenon , 1981 .

[26]  M. Giesen.  Step and island dynamics at solid/vacuum and solid/liquid interfaces , 2001 .

[27]  F. Family,et al.  Dynamic scaling of the island-size distribution and percolation in a model of submonolayer molecular-beam epitaxy , 1994 .

[28]  K. Morgenstern,et al.  Dynamics and stability of nanostructures on metal surfaces , 1999 .

[29]  H. Lüth,et al.  GaAs growth in metal–organic MBE , 1985 .

[30]  J. A. Roth,et al.  Kinetics of solid phase crystallization in amorphous silicon , 1988 .