The purpose of this article is to describe the basic physical processes involved in the nucleation and growth of thin films of materials on solid surfaces. In this introduction the three modes of crystal growth which are thought to occur on surfaces in the absence of interdiffusion are described, and the relationships between the thermodynamics of adsorption and the kinetics of crystal growth are explored in general terms. This is followed by a brief review of atomistic nucleation theory, explaining the relations of such theories to experimental observables. In the next three sections, recent experimental examples of these three growth modes are given, which are interpreted where possible in terms of nucleation and growth theory. The last section discusses observations on the shapes of growing crystallites and the relation of such observations to nucleation and surface diffusion processes.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0034-4885/47/4/002/pdf

Nucleation and growth of thin films

In this paper we present a novel and versatile t e c h n i q u e f o r t h e p r o d u c t i o n o f u l t r a f i n e m e t a l p a r t i c l e s by evaporation from a temperature‐regulated oven containing a reduced atmosphere of an inert gas. An extensive investigation of particles of oxidized Al, with diameters of 3 to 6 nm, has been performed. We have also studied ultrafine particles of Mg,Zn, and Sn produced in the same manner. A supplementing investigation has been carried out for particles of Cr, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, and Ga, as well as larger Al particles, produced by ’’conventional’’ inert‐gas evaporation from a resistive filament. Diameter as a function of evaporation rate, inert‐gas pressure, and the kind of inert gas are reported. Crystalline particles smaller than 20 nm look almost spherical in the electron microscope, while larger ones often display pronounced crystal habit. S i z e d i s t r i b u t i o n s have been investigated in detail, and consistently the logarithm of the particle diameter has a Gaussian distribution to a high precision for the smallest sizes, whereas larger particles deviate from such a simple behavior. A statistical growth model, based on the Central Limit Theorem, has been formulated for liquidlike coalescence of particles; this theory accounts satisfactorily for all our data, as well as for most size distributions published in the literature. Applications of the model to colloids, discontinuous films, and supported catalysts are discussed. By comparing size distributions for particles produced by a variety of techniques we found a number of empirical rules for the width of the distributions, as defined by a (geometric) standard deviation σ. For crystalline inert‐gas‐ evaporated particles we obtained consistently 1.36?σ?1.60; for coalescing islands in discontinuous films we found 1.22?σ?1.34; and similar rules are applicable to colloids, supported catalysts, and to ultrafine droplets.

Ultrafine metal particles

Clustering on surfaces

https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/112848/112848.pdf

Electronic properties of small metallic particles

Nucleation and film growth determine the coating structure and the coating properties. In certain film/substrate systems an experimental study of the processes in the very initial stage of film formation is possible. They reflect the results of modeling using the kinetic nucleation theory or the thermodynamic approach. Tor practical systems, i.e. non-UHV conditions, alloy and compound deposition, the relation are much more complex, but the structures developed are very similar to those obtained for pure metal deposits. In the present paper the approaches of kinetic nucleation theory and of “thick” film growth modeling are outlined and the structures developed as a function of substrate temperature and particle energy are presented. In principal the theoretical investigations are very helpful even if they don’t allow to draw quantitative conclusions for complex coating/substrate systems.

Nucleation and Growth of Thin Films

Growth and mobility effects of gold clusters on rocksalt (100) surfaces studied with the method of quantitative image analysis Part I: Cluster size distributions

Growth and mobility effects of gold clusters on rocksalt (100) surfaces studied with the method of quantitative image analysis Part II: Spatial distribution of clusters

H. Schmeisser

Papers

Growth and mobility effects of gold clusters on rocksalt (100) surfaces studied with the method of quantitative image analysis Part I: Cluster size distributions

Growth and mobility effects of gold clusters on rocksalt (100) surfaces studied with the method of quantitative image analysis Part II: Spatial distribution of clusters

Improvement of experimental work on nucleation kinetics by means of a “quantimet 720” image analysing computer