Transitions in Critical Island Size in Metal (100) and (111) Homoepitaxy: A Self-Consistent Rate Equation Approach

Abstract

AbstractA self-consistent rate equation (RE) approach to submonolayer growth for a restricted pair-bond model that is relevant to low and intermediate temperature metal (100) and (111) homoepitaxy is introduced. In contrast to previous standard rate equation results, the transition temperature from i = 1 to a higher critical island size is well predicted along with the average island and monomer densities. It is shown that the method's implicit introduction of short-range correlations between attachment/detachment rates, together with a careful estimate of the escape rates for small clusters, are important factors for a good agreement with the kinetic Monte Carlo simulation results.