Search

Island formation in strain-free heteroepitaxial deposition of thin films is analyzed using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of two minimal lattice models and scaling approaches. The transition from layer-by-layer (LBL) to island (ISL) growth is driven by a weaker binding strength of the substrate which, in the kinetic model, is equivalent to an increased diffusivity of particles on the substrate compared to particles on the film. The LBL-ISL transition region is characterized by particle fluxes between layers 1 and 2 significantly exceeding the net flux between them, which sets a quasi-equilibrium condition. Deposition on top of monolayer islands weakly contributes to second layer nucleation, in contrast with the homoepitaxial growth case. A thermodynamic approach for compact islands with one or two layers predicts the minimum size in which the second layer is stable. When this is linked to scaling expressions for submonolayer island deposition, the dependence of the ISL-LBL transition point on the kinetic parameters qualitatively matches the simulation results, with quantitative agreement in some parameter ranges. The transition occurs in the equilibrium regime of partial wetting and the convergence of the transition point upon reducing the deposition rate is very slow and practically unattainable in experiments.

Two-dimensional (2D) KPZ growth is usually investigated on substrates of lateral sizes $L_x=L_y$, so that $L_x$ and the correlation length ($\xi$) are the only relevant lengths determining the scaling behavior. However, in cylindrical geometry, as well as in flat rectangular substrates $L_x \neq L_y$ and, thus, the surfaces can become correlated in a single direction, when $\xi \sim L_x \ll L_y$. From extensive simulations of several KPZ models, we demonstrate that this yields a dimensional crossover in their dynamics, with the roughness scaling as $W \sim t^{\beta_{\text{2D}}}$ for $t \ll t_c$ and $W \sim t^{\beta_{\text{1D}}}$ for $t \gg t_c$, where $t_c \sim L_x^{1/z_{2\text{D}}}$. The height distributions (HDs) also cross over from the 2D flat [cylindrical] HD to the asymptotic Tracy-Widom GOE [GUE] distribution. Moreover, 2D-to-1D crossovers are found also in the asymptotic growth velocity and in the steady state regime of flat systems, where a family of universal HDs exists, interpolating between the 2D and 1D ones as $L_y/L_x$ increases. Importantly, the crossover scalings are fully determined and indicate a possible way to solve 2D KPZ models.

We develop the hypothesis that the dynamics of a given system may lead to the activity being constricted to a subset of space, characterized by a fractal dimension smaller than the space dimension. We also address how the response function might be sensitive to this change in dimensionality. We discuss how this phenomenon is observable in growth processes and near critical points for systems in equilibrium. In particular, we determine the fractal dimension $d_f$ for the Ising model and validate it via computer simulations for two dimensions.

While the 1-point height distributions (HDs) and 2-point covariances of $(2+1)$ KPZ systems have been investigated in several recent works for flat and spherical geometries, for the cylindrical one the HD was analyzed for few models and nothing is known about the spatial and temporal covariances. Here, we report results for these quantities, obtained from extensive numerical simulations of discrete KPZ models, for three different setups yielding cylindrical growth. Beyond demonstrating the universality of the HD and covariances, our results reveal other interesting features of this geometry. For example, the spatial covariances measured along the longitudinal and azimuthal directions are different, with the former being quite similar to the curve for flat $(2+1)$ KPZ systems, while the latter resembles the Airy$_2$ covariance of circular $(1+1)$ KPZ interfaces. We also argue (and present numerical evidence) that, in general, the rescaled temporal covariance $\mathcal{A}(t/t_0)$ decays asymptotically as $\mathcal{A}(x) \sim x^{-\bar{\lambda}}$ with an exponent $\bar{\lambda} = \beta + d^*/z$, where $d^*$ is the number of interface sides kept fixed during the growth (being $d^* = 1$ for the systems analyzed here). Overall, these results complete the picture of the main statistics for the $(2+1)$ KPZ class., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables

We study discrete KPZ growth models deposited on square lattice substrates, whose (average) lateral size enlarges as $L= L_0 + \omega t^{\gamma}$. Our numerical simulations reveal that the competition between the substrate expansion and the increase of the correlation length parallel to the substrate, $\xi \simeq c t^{1/z}$, gives rise to a number of interesting results. For instance, when $\gamma < 1/z$ the interface becomes fully correlated, but its squared roughness, $W_2$, keeps increasing as $W_2 \sim t^{2\alpha \gamma}$, as previously observed for 1D systems. A careful analysis of this scaling, accounting for an intrinsic width on it, allows us to estimate the roughness exponent of the 2D KPZ class as $\alpha = 0.387(1)$, which is very accurate and robust, once it was obtained averaging the exponents for different models and growth conditions (i.e., for various $\gamma$'s and $\omega$'s). In this correlated regime, the height distributions (HDs) and spatial covariances are consistent with those expected for the steady-state regime of the 2D KPZ class for flat geometry. For $\gamma \approx 1/z$, we find a family of distributions and covariances continuously interpolating between those for the steady-state and the growth regime of radial KPZ interfaces, as the ratio $\omega/c$ augments. When $\gamma>1/z$ the system stays forever in the growth regime and the HDs always converge to the same asymptotic distribution, which is the one for the radial case. The spatial covariances, on the other hand, are $(\gamma,\omega)$-dependent, showing a trend towards the covariance of a random deposition in enlarging substrates as the expansion rate increases. These results considerably generalize our understanding of the height fluctuations in 2D KPZ systems, revealing a scenario very similar to the one previously found in the 1D case., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

The infiltration of a solute in a fractal porous medium is usually anomalous, but chemical reactions of the solute and that material may increase the porosity and affect the evolution of the infiltration. We study this problem in two- and three-dimensional lattices with randomly distributed porous sites at the critical percolation thresholds and with a border in contact with a reservoir of an aggressive solute. The solute infiltrates that medium by diffusion and the reactions with the impermeable sites produce new porous sites with a probability $r$, which is proportional to the ratio of reaction and diffusion rates at the scale of a lattice site. Numerical simulations for $r\ll1$ show initial subdiffusive scaling and long time Fickean scaling of the infiltrated volumes or areas, but with an intermediate regime with time increasing rates of infiltration and reaction. The anomalous exponent of the initial regime agrees with a relation previously applied to infinitely ramified fractals. We develop a scaling approach that explains the subsequent time increase of the infiltration rate, the dependence of this rate on $r$, and the crossover to the Fickean regime. The exponents of the scaling relations depend on the fractal dimensions of the critical percolation clusters and on the dimensions of random walks in those clusters. The time increase of the reaction rate is also justified by that reasoning. As $r$ decreases, there is an increase in the number of time decades of the intermediate regime, which suggests that the time increasing rates are more likely to be observed is slowly reacting systems., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures

We study the statistics of the number of executed hops of adatoms at the surface of films grown with the Clarke-Vvedensky (CV) model in simple cubic lattices. The distributions of this number, $N$, are determined in films with average thicknesses close to $50$ and $100$ monolayers for a broad range of values of the diffusion-to-deposition ratio $R$ and of the probability $\epsilon$ that lowers the diffusion coefficient for each lateral neighbor. The mobility of subsurface atoms and the energy barriers for crossing step edges are neglected. Simulations show that the adatoms execute uncorrelated diffusion during the time in which they move on the film surface. In a low temperature regime, typically with $R\epsilon\lesssim 1$, the attachment to lateral neighbors is almost irreversible, the average number of hops scales as $\langle N\rangle \sim R^{0.38\pm 0.01}$, and the distribution of that number decays approximately as $\exp\left[-\left({N/\langle N\rangle}\right)^{0.80\pm 0.07}\right]$. Similar decay is observed in simulations of random walks in a plane with randomly distributed absorbing traps and the estimated relation between $\langle N\rangle$ and the density of terrace steps is similar to that observed in the trapping problem, which provides a conceptual explanation of that regime. As the temperature increases, $\langle N\rangle$ crosses over to another regime when $R\epsilon^{3.0\pm 0.3}\sim 1$, which indicates high mobility of all adatoms at terrace borders. The distributions $P\left( N\right)$ change to simple exponential decays, due to the constant probability for an adatom to become immobile after being covered by a new deposited layer. At higher temperatures, the surfaces become very smooth and $\langle N\rangle \sim R\epsilon^{1.85\pm 0.15}$, which is explained by an analogy with submonolayer growth.

Recent experimental works on one-dimensional (1D) circular Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) systems whose radii decrease in time have reported controversial conclusions about the statistics of their interfaces. Motivated by this, we investigate here several 1D KPZ models on substrates whose size changes in time as $L(t)=L_0 + \omega t$, focusing on the case $\omega<0$. From extensive numerical simulations, we show that for $L_0 \gg 1$ there exists a transient regime in which the statistics is consistent with that of flat KPZ systems (the $\omega=0$ case), for both $\omega<0$ and $\omega>0$. Actually, for a given model, $L_0$ and $|\omega|$, we observe that a difference between ingrowing ($\omega<0$) and outgrowing ($\omega>0$) systems arises only at long times ($t \gtrsim t_c=L_0/|\omega|$), when the expanding surfaces cross over to the statistics of curved KPZ systems, whereas the shrinking ones become completely correlated. A generalization of the Family-Vicsek scaling for the roughness of ingrowing interfaces is presented. Our results demonstrate that a transient flat statistics is a general feature of systems starting with large initial sizes, regardless their curvature. This is consistent with their recent observation in ingrowing turbulent liquid crystal interfaces, but it is in contrast with the apparent observation of curved statistics in colloidal deposition at the edge of evaporating drops. A possible explanation for this last result, as a consequence of the very small number of monolayers analyzed in this experiment, is given. This is illustrated in a competitive growth model presenting a few-monolayer transient and an asymptotic behavior consistent, respectively, with the curved and flat statistics., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures