Abstract:

Some problems are found in currently-available theoretical description of epitaxial crystal-growth mods, including that ①Frank-van der Merve mode is described as it only exists for positive dominance-level of the substrate surface energy and this is not in agreement with the experimental fact that a pair of materials with small enough lattice mismatch between them can grow alternately both in the Frank-van der Merve mode; ②the transition between Frank-van der Merve mode and Stranski-Krastanow (S-K) mode is regarded as it happens at a fixed lattice mismatch for different dominance-levels of the substrate surface energy and this description seems obviously unreasonable; ③the direct transitions from Frank-van der Merve mode to Volmer-Weber mode and vice versa are supposed possible and the truthfulness of this understanding might be seriously suspected. Taking these problems into consideration, a modified and more comprehensive theoretical description is proposed and the concept of quasi-Frank-van der Merve mode is introduced in it. Based upon the new theoretical understanding, the concept of "post S-K compatible-heterogeneous-growth mode" is proposed and the possibility to realize high quality compatible heterogeneous bulk crystal growth based on this new growth mode is investigated.

Key words: epitaxial growth mode, Frank-van der Merve mode, Stranski-Krastanow mode, Volmer-Weber mode, quasi-Frank-van der Merve mode, post S-K compatible-heterogeneous-growth mode, photonic integration, optoelectronic integration