Temperature variation of the morphology of nanocluster ensembles in the Ge/Si(100) system

The morphological characteristics of hut-cluster ensembles formed in a Ge/Si(100) heteroepitaxial system have been studied as functions of the substrate surface temperature by theoretical methods and by atomic force microscopy. As the temperature increases from 420 to 500degreesC, the lateral size of nanoclusters with a square base (grown at the same rate of 0.0345 ML/s to a total coverage of 6.2 ML) grows from 12 to 20 nm, while their number density on the substrate surface drops from 5.6 x 10(10) to 1.5 x 10(10) cm(-2). Predictions of a kinetic model are in sufficiently good agreement with the experimental data. (C) 2003 MAIK "Nauka / Interperiodica".