Nucleation and growth of erbium clusters on amorphous carbon substrates. II. Rate equation approaches to nucleation kinetics

Abstract

For pt.I see ibid. vol.1, no.2, p.145-51 (Oct. 1990). The correlation function and the distance distribution of nearest neighbours for erbium clusters deposited onto amorphous carbon surfaces are calculated, using (X,Y) coordinates of the clusters. Theoretical treatment of the processes of thin film nucleation and growth for both locally varying adatom concentration and mobile clusters suggested by Venables in 1973 are applied to the experimental results. The nearest neighbour distance distribution agrees well with the correlation function introduced by Venables, but Schmeisser's modification to Venables' correlation function proposed in 1974 does not produce a good fit to high number density distributions.