Role of codeposited impurities during growth. II. Dependence of morphology on binding and barrier energies

Rajesh Sathiyanarayanan, Ajmi Bh Hamouda, A. Pimpinelli, T. L. Einstein

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

In an accompanying article we showed that surface morphologies obtained through codeposition of a small quantity (2%) of impurities with Cu during growth (step-flow mode, θ = 40 ML) significantly depends on the lateral nearest-neighbor binding energy (ENN) to Cu adatom and the diffusion barrier (Ed) of the impurity atom on Cu(0 0 1). Based on these two energy parameters, ENN and Ed, we classify impurity atoms into four sets. We study island nucleation and growth in the presence of codeposited impurities from different sets in the submonolayer (θ≤ 0.7 ML) regime. Similar to growth in the step-flow mode, we find different nucleation and growth behavior for impurities from different sets. We characterize these differences through variations of the number of islands (Ni) and the average island size with coverage (θ). Further, we compute the critical nucleus size (i) for all of these cases from the distribution of capture-zone areas using the generalized Wigner distribution.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number035424
JournalPhysical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Volume83
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 24 2011

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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