Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 25, 2026

Atomically Defined Templates for Epitaxial Growth of Complex Oxide Thin Films
Published on: December 4, 2014
Process of irreversible nucleation in multilayer growth. I. Failure of the mean-field approach
Paolo Politi1, Claudio Castellano
1Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, Unità di Firenze, Via G. Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy. politi@ifac.cnr.it
Abstract:
The formation of stable dimers on top of terraces during epitaxial growth is investigated in detail. In this paper we focus on mean-field theory, the standard approach to study nucleation. Such theory is shown to be unsuitable for the present problem, because it is equivalent to considering adatoms as independent diffusing particles. This leads to an overestimate of the correct nucleation rate by a factor N, which has a direct physical meaning: on average, a visited lattice site is visited N times by a diffusing adatom. The dependence of N on the size of the terrace and on the strength of step-edge barriers is derived from well-known results for random walks. The spatial distribution of nucleation events is shown to be different from the mean-field prediction, for the same physical reason. In the following paper we develop an exact treatment of the problem.
Related Concept Videos
Recrystallization: Solid–Solution Equilibria
Crystal Growth: Principles of Crystallization
Initiating crystallization involves manipulating the concentration of the solute and the temperature of the solution. Since crystal growth occurs when the ratio of concentration and solubility of the solute in the solvent – the...
Anionic Chain-Growth Polymerization: Mechanism
Cationic Chain-Growth Polymerization: Mechanism
Step-Growth Polymerization: Overview
Many natural and synthetic polymers are produced by...
Theories of Dissolution: Diffusion Layer Model
This process starts with a thin layer, saturated with the drug, forming at the interface between the solid and liquid. The solute then diffuses from this layer into the main solution. The Noyes-Whitney equation suggests that the rate of dissolution relies on the diffusion...

