Film Growth Modes

Growth modes

1. Layer by layer, or Frank-van der Merwe growth mode. It is because the atoms of the deposit material are more strongly attracted to the substrate than they are to themselves.
   For depositions of films on dissimilar substrates, full-monolayer nucleation will be promoted by strong film-substrate bonding (negative heat of mixing), low film surface energy and high substrate energy.
   
2. Island, or Volmer-Weber growth mode. It is because the deposit atomes are more strongly bound to each other than they are to the substrate.
   
3. Layer + island, or Stranski-Krastanov (SK) growth mode. It is an intermediate case and it is much more common than one might think. In this case, layers form first, but then for one reason or another the system gets tired of this, and switches to islands.