Epitaxial phenomena across length and time scales

The morphological evolution of an epitaxial film results from atomistic pro cesses such as adatom motion and step-adatom interactions asserting their i nfluence over the macroscopic length and time scales of the growth front. M odelling epitaxial phenomena thus necessitates making a compromise between the detailed information provided by first-principles methods and the compu tational flexibility afforded by methods such as Monte-Carlo simulations an d continuum equations of motion, in which atomistic processes are replaced by coarse-grained effective kinetics. We will review the various approaches that are available for modelling epitaxial phenomena using the (001) surfa ces of III-V compound semiconductors as a case study, with a view to making direct comparisons with experimental measurements and to establishing a me thodology that is capable of incorporating all pertinent length and time sc ales. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.