Formation of adsorbate structures induced by external electric field in plasma-condensate systems

Abstract

We present a new model of plasma-condensate system, by taking into account an anisotropy of transference reactions of adatoms between neighbor layers of multi-layer system, caused by the strength of the electric field near substrate. We discuss an influence of the strength of the electric field onto first-order phase transitions and conditions for adsorbate patterning in plasma-condensate systems. It is shown that separated pyramidal-like multi-layer adsorbate islands can be formed in the plasma-condensate system if the strength of the electric field near substrate becomes larger tan the critical value, which depends on the interaction energy of adsorbate and adsorption coefficient.