Mean-field nucleation theory with nonlocal interactions

Mean-field nucleation theory has for a long time been successfully used to extract microscopic parameters from island density data in growth experiments. However, it produces grossly incorrect results when used to analyze weakly corrugated systems, where adsorbate interactions cannot be neglected. Here, a mean-field theory that includes nonlocal adsorbate interactions is developed and successfully tested against kinetic Monte Carlo growth simulations for a realistic adsorbate system.