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Phys. Rev. B 55, 7653–7659 (1997)

Two-dimensional facet nucleation and growth on Si(111)

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Da-Jiang Liu
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742

John D. Weeks
Institute for Physical Science and Technology and Department of Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742

M. D. Johnson
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742

Ellen D. Williams
Department of Physics and Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742

Received 30 August 1996; published in the issue dated 15 March 1997

The lateral growth of an isolated nucleated facet is studied using a simple two-dimensional step model. An effective Hamiltonian that causes a planar surface to phase separate into facets and step bunches is proposed. The motions of the steps are determined by the relaxational dynamics of the effective Hamiltonian with and without a local conservation requirement. An even simpler mean-field-like model is used to illustrate the mechanism of the experimentally observed constant-velocity facet tip propagation. Numerical calculations using thermodynamic and transport coefficients previously measured give good agreement with experiments under the local conservation requirement.

© 1997 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.55.7653
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.55.7653
PACS:
68.10.Jy, 68.35.Md, 82.65.Dp
 
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