Self-consistent rate theory for submonolayer surface growth of multicomponent systems

Abstract

The self-consistent rate theory for surface growth in the submonolayer regime is generalized from mono- to multicomponent systems, which are formed by codeposition of different types of atoms or molecules. The theory requires the introduction of pair density distributions to enable a symmetric treatment of reactions among different species. The approach is explicitly developed for binary systems and tested against kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Using a reduced set of rate equations, only a few differential equations need to be solved to obtain good quantitative predictions for island and adatom densities, as well as densities of unstable clusters.