Novel SiGe island coarsening kinetics: ostwald ripening and elastic interactions
Real-time light scattering measurements of coherent island coarsening during SiGe/Si heteroepitaxy reveal unusual kinetics. In particular, the mean island volume increases superlinearly with time, while the areal density of islands decreases at a faster-than-linear rate. Neither observation is consistent with standard considerations of Ostwald ripening. Modification of the standard theory to incorporate the effect of elastic interactions in the growing island array reproduces the observed behavior.
Floro
JA
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-1415, USA.
Sinclair
MB
Chason
E
Freund
LB
Twesten
RD
Hwang
RQ
Lucadamo
GA