Effect of long-range attraction on growth model

Abstract

The effect of long-range attraction on growth models is studied in a two-dimensional colloidal model system. Because of the attraction between the incoming particles and the growing front, incoming monomers are collected preferentially by step protrusions, giving rise to formation of step peaks, the so-called steering effect. However, the situation becomes complicated in the case of incoming dimers. The stronger attraction of the incoming dimers to the existing step particles induces an additional interlayer mass transport, which tends to smoothen out the local step peaks. The long-term effect of the interplay between the steering effect and the smoothing effect is that the local small step peaks are smoothened out and the larger global step protrusions are developed. On the basis of our observations, a mechanism is suggested to interpret the reentrant smooth growth occurring at low temperatures in epitaxial growth. © 2007 American Chemical Society.