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Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 2449 - 2452 (2000)

Enhanced Instability of Strained Alloy Films due to Compositional Stresses

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B. J. Spencer
Department of Mathematics, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14214-3093

P. W. Voorhees
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208

J. Tersoff
IBM Research Division, T. J. Watson Research Center, P.O. Box 218, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598

Received 23 July 1999

A single-component strained film is known to be unstable to the stress-driven morphological instability. Here, we determine how the instability is modified in an alloy film by considering the effect of compositional stresses due to an atomic size difference. We find that the coupling of composition to stress always makes the film more unstable to the formation of stress-driven surface undulations. The destabilization is greatest over a range of intermediate deposition rates.


©2000 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.2449
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.2449
PACS: 81.15.Aa, 68.55.-a

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