Minimum energy configuration of epitaxial material clusters on a lattice-mismatched substrate

摘要

Strained epitaxial material clusters or islands grown on a relatively thick substrate are considered in the context of continuum mechanics. The islands and the substrate are modeled as isotropic elastic solids with similar material properties. The geometry is assumed to be two-dimensional. Under the assumption that the total free energy of the system consists of the energy of the free surface and the strain energy, minimum energy profiles of dislocation-free islands are calculated.