Comment on "Thermodynamic Self-Limiting Growth of Heteroepitaxial Islands Induced by Nonlinear Elastic Effect"

Making use of incontrovertible scaling arguments, here we demonstrate that the main findings of the recent Nano Letter paper Hu et al. ( Hu , H. , Niu , X. , and Liu , F. Nano Lett. 2016 , 16 , 3919 ) are incorrect and unphysical, that is, there is no self-limiting island growth due to nonlinear elastic effects, as claimed by Hu et al. We also note that the key concept of the paper by Hu et. al., that is, the island height dependence of the elastic strain field has already been published 10 years ago by Zinovyev , V. A. , Vastola , G. , Montalenti , F. , and Miglio , L. Surf. Sci. 2006 , 600 , 4777 , offering a correct and elaborate treatment even in a more generic sense, including also nonlinear elasticity effects consistently.