SIMULATION-MODEL FOR SELF-ORDERING OF STRAINED ISLANDS IN MOLECULAR-BEAM EPITAXY

The growth of quasiordered ultrasmall InAs islands by molecular-beam e pitaxy utilizing the intrinsic elastic strain between the islands and the substrate is a promising approach to fabricate regular arrays of d efect-free quantum dots. In this paper, a simulation of the island gro wth kinetics based on a phenomenological approach that introduces an e ffective exclusion zone that mimics the strain effects surrounding a g rowing island is described. The simulation results, in qualitative agr eement with experiments, show that the growth kinetics can induce a qu asiordering in the island position if either the exclusion zone or the nuclei density is sufficiently large.