Spontaneous Ge island ordering promoted by partial silicon capping

In this paper, we show that lateral arrangement of Ge/Si(00 1) self-assembled islands in a square array oriented along the [100]-[0 10] directions can be obtained through the lateral displacement of the islands themselves. We found that when the deposited islands are exposed to an external silicon flux, the impinging silicon atoms induce Ge-Si intermixing resulting in island shape transformation from domes to large pyramids. This transformation leads to an array of closely spaced islands interacting elastically among themselves through the substrate. By means of atomistic simulations we demonstrate that this elastic repulsion drives a net flux of Ge and Si atoms from one side to the other side of the islands, leading to a lateral displacement of the whole island. This displacement ends when the two islands are sufficiently far away, or when another island is approached during the motion. In a dense ensemble of islands, this mechanism drives the tendency to order observed experimentally. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.