Unified phase-field model for epitaxial growth of multi-scale three-dimensional islands on insulating surfaces

In this paper we present a unified phase-field model for non-equilibrium growths of various three-dimensional metal islands on insulating surfaces. We introduce a phase-field variable to distinguish the island from the non-island regions and substrate and a density variable to describe local density of deposited adatoms. Two partial differential equations with appropriate boundary conditions, as the governing equations, are used to describe the evolution of the three-dimensional metal islands and the diffusion of adatoms. We solve the equations by using an adaptive mesh refinement method so that we can simulate the non-equilibrium growth of three-dimensional metal islands from tens of nanometers to several micrometers. We investigate the dependence of simulated results on the model parameters and experimental conditions. Equilibrium shape of such islands can be obtained through sufficient post-deposition relaxation. Experimental trends of island size and shape on various scales are obtained with reasonable parameters. This method should be a good approach to non-equilibrium growths of multi-scale three-dimensional metal islands. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.