Strain Relief via Island Ramification in Submonolayer Hereroepitaxy

Bert Müller, Lorenz P. Nedelmann, Bjørn Fischer, Harald Brune, Johannes V. Barth, Klaus Kern, Daniel Erdös and Joachim Wollschläger
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Bert Müller: Institut de Physique Expérimentale, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland;
Lorenz P. Nedelmann: Institut de Physique Expérimentale, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Bjørn Fischer: Institut de Physique Expérimentale, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Harald Brune: Institut de Physique Expérimentale, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Johannes V. Barth: Institut de Physique Expérimentale, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Klaus Kern: Institut de Physique Expérimentale, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Daniel Erdös: Institut für Festkörperphysik, Universität Hannover, D-30167 Hannover, Germany
Joachim Wollschläger: Institut für Festkörperphysik, Universität Hannover, D-30167 Hannover, Germany

Surface Review and Letters (SRL), 1998, vol. 05, issue 03n04, 769-781

Abstract: The mechanisms of strain relief in sub monolayer heteroepitaxy of Cu/Ni(100) are studied using variable temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and high resolution low energy electron diffraction. It is demonstrated that pseudomorphic copper islands, as they grow in size, undergo a spontaneous shape transition. Below a critical island size of about 500 atoms the islands have a compact shape, while above this size they become ramified. The shape transition of the coherently strained islands, predicted theoretically by Tersoff and Tromp, is driven by the size-dependent outward relaxation of the step edge atoms due to the positive lattice mismatch. The ramified island shape, which reflects the energy minimum of binding and strain energy, is characterized by only one parameter: the arm width of the monolayer-high copper islandsw =22±1)atoms.

Date: 1998
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DOI: 10.1142/S0218625X98001158

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