Kinetic suppression of islanding in impurity‐mediated heteroepitaxial growth of germanium on silicon

TLDR: In this article, the impurity-mediated suppression of islanding in molecular beam epitaxy growth experiments of Ge on Si(100) can be understood by a kinetic reduction of surface diffusion.

Abstract: The impurity‐mediated suppression of islanding in molecular beam epitaxy growth experiments of Ge on Si(100) can be understood by a kinetic reduction of surface diffusion. Besides the energy barrier for surface diffusion, an energy barrier for a site exchange mechanism between Ge adatoms and the impurity atoms also has to be considered in a simple phenomenological approach that describes this effect. We found satisfactory agreement with different experimental results, like dependence of kinetic suppression of islanding on temperature and/or submonolayer coverage with impurities and germanium flux density.