Wetting effect and morphological stability in growth of short-period strained multilayers

Abstract

We explore the morphological stability during the growth of strained multilayer structures in a dynamical model which describes the coupling of elastic fields, wetting effect, and deposition process. We quantitatively show the significant influence of the wetting effect on the stability properties, in particular for short-period multilayers. Our results are qualitatively similar to recent experimental observations in AlAs/InAs/InP(001) system. We also give predictions for strain-balanced multilayers.