https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050395
Logarithmic islanding in submonolayer epitaxial growth
1
Center for Polymer Studies and Department of
Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
2
Centro de Física do Porto and Departamento de Física,
Universidade do Porto, 4150 Porto, Portugal
Corresponding author: a redner@sid.bu.edu
Received:
3
June
1998
Accepted:
13
July
1998
Published online: 15 August 1998
We investigate submonolayer epitaxial growth with a fixed monomer
flux and irreversible aggregation of adatom islands due to an effective
island diffusion, with a diffusivity for an mass k island proportional
to 
. For 
, there is a steady state, while for
, continuously evolving logarithmic islanding occurs in which
the island density grows extremely slowly, as 
. In the
latter regime, the island size distribution exhibits complex, but
universal, multiple-scale mass dependence which we account for
theoretically.
PACS: 68.35.Fx – Diffusion; interface formation / 36.40.Sx – Diffusion and dynamics of clusters / 66.30.Fq – Self-diffusion in metals, semimetals, and alloys
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 1998
