Ion Beam Studies of Thin Film Growth Processes

A uniform, strained epitaxial film (>10angstroms) is not in thermodynamic equilibrium. rather cluster formation is expected. We report measurements of the growth mechanism and kinetics of islands for Ga on clean Si(100) and Si(111) surfaces. To our knowledge these are the first surface measurements which show that three dimensional island growth can be described in terms of known cluster ripening mechanisms.