Scaling analysis of diffusion-mediated island growth in surface adsorption processes

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Abstract
We examine the competition between diffusion-mediated irreversible nucleation and growth of islands during submonolayer deposition on perfect substrates. We provide a detailed scaling theory for the complete distribution of island sizes and separations, both with the ratio of diffusion to deposition rate and with time. Scaling functions and exponents are obtained by simulation. The leading scaling behavior is independent of details of the island structure. These results are supplemented by an analysis of rate equations for the island-size distribution whose unconventional form appropriately describes island nucleation and growth mechanisms. The exponents agree with the simulations and the island-size distribution shows qualitative agreement. We further provide simulation results for the scaling of the island-separation distribution, quantifying, in particular, the depletion in the concentration of pairs of islands at small separations.