Heteroepitaxial anisotropic film growth of various orientations

Investigation of the heteroepitaxial film growth for anisotropic systems has been carried out by means of the anisotropic phase-field crystal model. Numerical simulations have been performed by varying the anisotropic parameters, orientations, and lattice misfit between isotropic substrate and anisotropic film layers. The simulation results demonstrate the formation of dislocations during the growth of layers with non-cubic anisotropic lattice in the presence of the elastic strain caused by the lattice misfits. It is shown that for any particular choice of misfit, both the lattice anisotropy of the film and the orientation of the substrate influence the parameters of dislocation formation such as the number of dislocations, the characteristic distance at which dislocations begin to nucleate, and the excess elastic energy.