Swelling as a stabilizing mechanism in irradiated thin films.
J Phys Condens Matter
; 30(30): 304003, 2018 Aug 01.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-29882743
ABSTRACT
Irradiation of semiconductor surfaces often leads to the spontaneous formation of rippled structures at certain irradiation angles. However, at high enough energies, in the keV range, these structures are sometimes observed to vanish for all angles, despite the absence of any identified, universally-stabilizing physical mechanisms in operation. Here, we examine the effect on pattern formation of radiation-induced swelling, which has been excluded from prior treatments of stress in irradiated films. After developing a suitable continuum model, we perform a linear stability analysis to determine its effect on stability. Under appropriate simplifying assumptions, we find swelling indeed to be stabilizing at all angles for wavenumbers typical of experimental observations. Therefore, this mechanism may account for the suppression of ripple formation observed at energies over 1 keV.
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2018
Tipo de documento:
Article