Incubation time of heterogeneous growth of islands in the mode of incomplete condensation

Abstract

The incubation time necessary for the growth of surface islands on heterogeneous nucleation centers to begin has been theoretically analyzed depending on the material gas flow and surface temperature. It is shown that, under heterogeneous growth in the mode of incomplete condensation, the incubation time increases with temperature according to the Arrhenius law and is inversely proportional to the flow, irrespective of the mechanism of diffusion transport to islands. The results obtained have been qualitatively compared with the experimental data on the incubation time for three-dimensional GaN islands arising in the initial stage of self-induced growth of GaN nanowires.