Stability of an hexagonal array of coherently strained conical islands against Ostwald ripening

We present a linear stability analysis of an hexagonal array of coherently strained islands against the exchange of material between islands. Surprisingly, ultra-dense arrays are found to be metastable due to the short-range stabilizing effect of elastic interactions which overcome the destabilizing...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of physics 2005-11, Vol.320 (1), p.237-256
Main Authors: Shchukin, V.A., Bimberg, D., Munt, T.P., Jesson, D.E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
CRYSTAL DEFECTS
ELASTICITY
KINETICS
MAGNETIC ISLANDS
MEAN-FIELD THEORY
OSCILLATIONS
QUANTUM DOTS
RELAXATION
SIMULATION
STABILITY
Strain relaxation
SURFACE ENERGY
THIN FILMS
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We present a linear stability analysis of an hexagonal array of coherently strained islands against the exchange of material between islands. Surprisingly, ultra-dense arrays are found to be metastable due to the short-range stabilizing effect of elastic interactions which overcome the destabilizing contribution of surface energy. Mean-field simulations are used to investigate the ripening kinetics of local volume defects in arrays which are found to equilibrate through island volume oscillations. Simulations of global perturbations directly verify the existence of the metastable regime and confirm the nature of the most unstable mode as derived from the stability analysis for sub-critical island coverage.
ISSN:0003-4916
1096-035X
DOI:10.1016/j.aop.2005.06.002