Pattern formation during vapor deposition of organic films on inorganic substrates-continuum modeling vs experiments

Abstract

The early stages during low temperature vapor deposition of organic materials onto inorganic substrates are frequently characterized by surface pattern formation on a characteristic length scale, accompanied by dramatic roughening, while these structures level at higher film thicknesses. Unexplainable by traditional liquid-state dewetting scenarios, we employ a combined experimental/modeling study to track down the underlying physics using poly(bisphenol A carbonate) (PC) on GaAs (100) as a model system. We present a minimum continuum model, which incorporates only material deposition and chemical potential driven surface diffusion as material processes, whose numerical solution is capable of reproducing key experimental features.