Spontaneous formation of vertically anticorrelated epitaxial islands on ultrathin substrates

摘要

Exploration of self-assembled epitaxial islands on ultrathin substrates opens a way for fabricatingnmechanoelectric heterostructures, while the effect of substrate thickness remains unclear. By usingnphase field simulations, we demonstrate spontaneous formation of a vertically anticorrelatednquantum dot growth on the top and bottom surfaces of an ultrathin substrate. The mechanism of thisnvertical anticorrelation is due to the overlapping effect of the fringe elastic field modulated by thensubstrate thickness. Good agreements with the pattern of epitaxial islands on nanowire andnnanomembrane are observed. The obtained result provides a guideline for tailoring the ordering ofnheteroepitaxial island growth. © 2010 American Institute of Physics. u0004doi:10.1063/1.3533667