Surface instability and evolution of nonlinear elastic heteroepitaxial thin-film structures

Abstract

Computer simulations have been performed to investigate the effect of the nonlinear elasticity on the surface morphologic evolution of heteroepitaxial systems. It is found that high elastic nonlinearity and mismatch strain levels markedly affect the time and space scales of surface morphologic evolution. However, the tendency for a three-dimensional nonlinear elastic solid is opposite to its two-dimensional counterpart. A linear surface instability analysis has been performed for both two- and three-dimensional nonlinear elastic solids under strain to explain the simulation findings.