Surface Diffusion and Islanding in Semiconductor Heteroepitaxy

The interrelation of surface diffusion and islanding has a strong influence on the growth of semiconductor heterostructures during molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). These processes affect the reordering of substrate surface reconstructions, minimum epitaxial temperatures, and maximum overlayer thicknesses in the growth of strained layer structures. Here we report on a systematic effort to improve our understanding in this area. , focusing on the technologically important Si/Ge system.