Comparison between models of insulator and semiconductor thin films islanding.pdf

a r X i v : 0 8 0 1 .3 6 1 9 v 1 [ c o n d - m a t .m t r l - s c i ] 2 3 J a n 2 0 0 8 pss header will be provided by the publisher Comparison between models of insulator and semiconductor thin films islanding Franc?ois Lallet ?1 , Alain Dauger ??1 et Nathalie Olivi-Tran ???1 1 SPCTS, UMR-CNRS 6638 47 a? 73 Avenue Albert Thomas, 87065 Limoges cedex, FRANCE Mots-cle? PVD-CVD, Sol-gel processing, Monte Carlo simulation, thin film islanding. PACS 04A25 The synthesis of self-organized quantum dots (QD’s) can be achieved through bottom up layer by layer deposition processes as chemical vapor deposition (CVD) or physical vapor deposition (PVD). However, QD’s may also be synthesized via sol-gel route, which involves a spontaneous evolution from thin films to discrete QD’s without further deposition. The aim of the paper is to discuss and compare the physical phe- nomena involved in QD’s formation which initiate from thin film surface roughening between PVD-CVD and sol-gel synthesis approaches. We propose two simple physical models which are relevant to explain the fundamental differences between those methods. Copyright line will be provided by the publisher 1 Introduction Many authors have presented and studied epitaxial QD’s growth through PVD-CVD synthesis pro- cesses. The physical phenomena associated with such approaches have been widely studied both theoreti- cally [1][2][3] and experimentally [4][5], in particular through the model system Ge/Si [6][7][8][9][10][11][12], because of its promising technological applications. However the synthesis of QD’s epitaxially grown on a crystalline substrate can be achieved through a sol-gel approach. Indeed, Bachelet et al [13] have re- cently synthesized and studied the microstructure of zirconia QD’s grown on a c-cut sapphire substrate during thermal annealing of a zirconia precursor xerogel thin film deposited on the substrate by sol-gel dip-coating. The aim of this article is to discuss the physical phenomena invol