Microscopic theory of epitaxial growth on vicinal surfaces.

Abstract

We formulate a microscopic theory to describe epitaxial growth on vicinal surfaces in the regime where the step velocity can be considered slow and the only island-formation processes involve adatoms and dimers. A solution for the nonlinear equations describing the adatom and dimer concentrations and currents is obtained based on the assumption that Fick's law holds for the adatoms. Our general solution closely resembles that recently obtained from a macroscopic description based on the surface activity with the notable difference that our result includes a dependence on the dimer binding energy. We are also able to more accurately describe the absorbing boundary condition at the steps than is possible with a macroscopic theory.