NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS OF THE SIZE ORDERING OF NANOCRYSTALS

The nucleation and growth of particles on the 1-100 nm length scale is a phenomenon of increasing interest in the areas of electronics and o ptoelectronics. Dealing with the preparation of nanoparticle distribut ion on a substrate by self-organization, we wish to determine whether conditions exist where the distributions approach an array structure w hich can be compared to so-called quantum dot organized structures. Th is means that it is fundamental to obtain particles of the same shape with a low dispersion in size and an isotropic distribution on the sub strate. This work is devoted to the numerical investigation of growth phenomena on a plane substrate in the case where diffusion and coalesc ence are mainly taken into account. Experiments on a model system, i.e . Sn/SiOx, are compared to simulations. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.