Elastic interaction of defects on crystal surfaces

Surface defects corresponding to adatoms, vacancies and steps interact, affecting and often dominating kinetic processes associated with thin-film growth. A discrete harmonic model for the evaluation of the interaction energy between surface defects is presented. It is based on the concept of eigenstrains and allows for the accurate evaluation of the elastic field, both at the immediate vicinity of the defects, as well as in the far field. Results for the interaction energy suggest conditions for which a body-centered-cubic crystal surface will grow in a stable, two-dimensional, step-flow mode. In order to verify the accuracy of the discrete elastic model, we present results of atomic simulations that incorporate Embedded Atom Method (EAM) potentials. The discrete elastic model results compare favorably with results from our atomic EAM simulations and agree with the far-field predictions of continuum elastic theory.