Kinetic origin of island intermixing during the growth of Ge on Si(001)

The effects of substrate temperature, growth rate, and postgrowth annealing on the composition of Ge islands grown on Si(001) were investigated with a combination of selective wet chemical etching and atomic force microscopy. A simple kinetic model comprising only surface diffusion processes can explain all the experimentally observed compositional profiles for pyramid and dome islands grown in the 560-620 deg. C range. From this model three-dimensional compositional maps were extracted. By performing annealing experiments a change in the composition of the domes was observed. This could be explained as the result of the islands' movement induced by alloying-driven energy minimization. Also in this case kinetically hindered bulk diffusion processes are not needed to explain the experimental observations.