Thin Film Morphology: Equilibrium Between Clusters and Uniform Layers at Non-Zero Temperatures.

A common form of thin growth involves clustering on either a bare substrate (Volmer-Weber growth) or on an initial uniform layer (Stranski-Krastanov growth). In this paper we show that at non-zero temperature the clusters must be accompanied by an additional, temperature dependent, adsorbed layer which forms a uniform background in the Volmer-Weber case and adds to the temperature independent component in the Stranski-Krastanov case.