Simulation study on strain-mediated coarsening of quantum dots

We propose a physical model which describes the post-deposition coarsening of coherently strained three-dimensional islands on a flat substrate. In this model, formulated in terms of a set equations of motion for the island volume and position, both Ostwald ripening mechanism and misfit strain-induced elastic effects are taken into account. Large-scale computer simulations demonstrate that the repulsive inter-island elastic interaction causes the island motion, leading to the self-organized formation of a regular array of islands with both uniform size and spacing.