Frank–Van der Merwe growth (or FM growth) is one of the three primary modes by which

thin film A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ap ...

s grow

epitaxially Epitaxy refers to a type of crystal growth or material deposition in which new crystalline layers are formed with one or more well-defined orientations with respect to the crystalline seed layer. The deposited crystalline film is called an epit ...

at a crystal surface or interface. It is also known as 'layer-by-layer growth'. It is considered an ideal growth model, requiring perfect lattice matching between the substrate and the layer growing on to it, and it is usually limited to homoepitaxy. For FM growth to occur, the atoms that are to be deposited should be more attracted to the substrate than to each other, which is in contrast to the layer-plus-island growth model. FM growth is the preferred growth model for producing smooth films. It was first described by South African physicist Jan van der Merwe and British physicist

Frederick Charles Frank Sir Frederick Charles Frank, OBE, FRS (6 March 1911 – 5 April 1998) was a British theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work on crystal dislocations, including (with Thornton Read) the idea of the Frank–Read source of dislocation ...

in a series of four papers based on Van der Merwe's PhD research between 1947 and 1949.

References

Thin films {{Physics-stub

See also

References